What To Do About Syria

[Dino Velvet]

I'll take ideas from all sides. People dying every day with no end in sight.

[hippifried]

Covert assassination with full deniability.

[russtafa]

who cares

[Stavros]

I care.

[Prospero]

I also care. But the options seem very few since the Russians and the Chinese vetoed the UN. And since the US and Europe clearly don't want to intervene militarily. It would probably be too much to hope for that other Arab nations might intervene - and unrealistic since Iran backs Syria militarily and if Turkey and/or Saudi Arabia got involved overtly then Iran would doubtless get involved as well. Result - regional conflagration. So the mothers, children, babies and innocents of Syria will be bombed and burned in growing numbers by the vile Assad regime. So yes - a lot of people, those who care abut humanity, do care.

Stand up and be counted.

[russtafa]

they are just a bunch of muslims i hope they kill each other

[Prospero]

I assume you are simply being provocatve - or trying to wind us up Russtafa. Dead babies Russtafa. Toddlers Russtafa. Women with their head blown off. .Now tell us you are really such an inhuman moron?

[russtafa]

what i don't see i don't care

[russtafa]

leave them to their own shit

[onmyknees]

What to do about it Dino asks???????? Not a fucking thing. Or.........go to that landmark of incompetence in Manhattan and call a special session...Assemble the worlds leaders then begin serious discussions...............for the next 5 years.

By that time enough of them might have killed each other off to go in a pick up the pieces. Let the Saudi's get blood on their hands for once.
I've seen enough American men and women scared for life helping ungrateful Arabs and Muslims. But to do nothing would mean we'd have to have a domestic energy policy, which we have none, so my guess is we'll at some point once again intervene.

[Prospero]

I love how humane all the right wingers here are - while children are being slaughtered. Not a jot of compassion from them. Oh how the world should look forward to President Santorum - a signal that the lunatics really will have taken over the asylum.

[russtafa]

i have dealt with to many muslims to feel compassion for them

[Dino Velvet]

I definitely do not want our military involved. The Russians and the Chinese are always such pains in the asses for diplomacy. I just don't know what's left. It's hard watching unarmed people running through the street being shot like that. I have no answers, only questions.

[fred41]

I love how humane all the right wingers here are - while children are being slaughtered. Not a jot of compassion from them. Oh how the world should look forward to President Santorum - a signal that the lunatics really will have taken over the asylum.

Compassion is a wonderful thing, but compassion with inaction makes it virtually useless - all you're left with then is a lot of hand wringing, which accomplishes nothing but callused hands.
...also, it's not a right vs. left thing. ..(unless you are strictly going by comments posted on this board).

[Dino Velvet]

There is much common ground on the right and left. Neither side should be demonized as this is an opportunity to come together for once. I think we're all frustrated and don't know what to do. These civilians being killed are purely innocent.

[jerseyboy72]

What to do? Nothing!

[Odelay]

I've seen enough American men and women scared for life helping ungrateful Arabs and Muslims. But to do nothing would mean we'd have to have a domestic energy policy, which we have none, so my guess is we'll at some point once again intervene.

Syria's not a very big oil producer so I don't understand your energy policy comment.

[Prospero]

There is much common ground on the right and left. Neither side should be demonized as this is an opportunity to come together for once. I think we're all frustrated and don't know what to do. These civilians being killed are purely innocent.

it was the inhumane and callous remarks by two very vocal right wingers that prompted my dismay at their lack of compassion.
Yes compassion without action is useless. But at least its not saying - let them kill each other. They're "just" Muslims.

[flabbybody]

leave them to their own shit
you've made your point.
your multiple posts with the same theme makes it disruptive to read what others have to say

[Dino Velvet]

it was the inhumane and callous remarks by two very vocal right wingers that prompted my dismay at their lack of compassion.
Yes compassion without action is useless. But at least its not saying - let them kill each other. They're "just" Muslims.

Let's bury it and move on then. I want your input here as much as anyone's. It seems there is much to agree on.

[fred41]

Let's bury it and move on then. I want your input here as much as anyone's. It seems there is much to agree on.

Unfortunately it seems, at least for the moment, that there is not much to be done (if someone on the board is an expert on the various factions in the Middle East, now is the time to step forward)...Regardless where we stand on military action, I think we can all agree that we're pretty much exhausted when it comes to putting boots on the ground.

Another problem is - that it's always very difficult to know what faction to get behind and what the outcome will be. Things aren't always what they seem...and sometimes they are.

For now, everyone's probably going to have to take a "wait and see" attitude. I'm sure there's all kinds of behind the scenes manipulation going on from various intelligence agencies anyway.
There may come a time to act...but I don't think that time is here yet.

Diplomacy is all we have right now. More talking doesn't always serve a real purpose...but it does fill the void until a better solution comes up.

[fred41]

...I realize I just said a whole lot of nothing.

[Dino Velvet]

Unfortunately it seems, at least for the moment, that there is not much to be done (if someone on the board is an expert on the various factions in the Middle East, now is the time to step forward)...Regardless where we stand on military action, I think we can all agree that we're pretty much exhausted when it comes to putting boots on the ground.

Another problem is - that it's always very difficult to know what faction to get behind and what the outcome will be. Things aren't always what they seem...and sometimes they are.

For now, everyone's probably going to have to take a "wait and see" attitude. I'm sure there's all kinds of behind the scenes manipulation going on from various intelligence agencies anyway.
There may come a time to act...but I don't think that time is here yet.

Diplomacy is all we have right now. More talking doesn't always serve a real purpose...but it does fill the void until a better solution comes up.

Nice post also.

[Dino Velvet]

...I realize I just said a whole lot of nothing.

No you didn't. I thought it was perfect. We're all confused.

[russtafa]

it was the inhumane and callous remarks by two very vocal right wingers that prompted my dismay at their lack of compassion.
Yes compassion without action is useless. But at least its not saying - let them kill each other. They're "just" Muslims.
fuck the muslim dogs my ancestors bathed in their blood and if i was of military age i would not mind a good bath lol

[Stavros]

My apologies for the length of this reply.

The simple answer to Dino's question, What to do is going to depend on who you are.

I think the worst case scenario is either a conflagration in Syria that creates a refugee crisis that spills over into Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and even the occupied Jawlan (Golan Heights); or a victory for the old order, which doesn't solve anything in the short to medium term.

Bashar al-Asad is often presented as a mild, decent sort of bloke who never really wanted to be President, his brother Basil was slated for the job before dying in a car accident...but if you didn't know what your father had been doing in Syria since 1963 or what it is the Ba'ath Party believes in and how it operates then having a degree and being a practising opthalmologist suggests a pair of glasses may be required. He might be naive, but he isn't innocent.

Some will argue that the Ba'ath Party established order in a country which had been fractious and shambolic since the end of French rule in 1946, but this ignores the fact that having seized power in a coup in 1963, there was no order -the Ba’ath party was divided between so-called ideologues and pragmatists –with Hafiz al-Asad representing the Pragmatists who launched a counter-coup against the Ba’ath in 1966 calling their new formation, with characteristic imagination, the Neo-Ba’ath Party. The Christian who had been part responsible for creating this Arab version of National Socialism, Michel Aflaq eventually fled for his life to the more congenial quarters of effective house arrest in Baghdad. Asad spent the next four years mopping up (possibly literally) his opponents, creating a stability of terror not much different from Iraq; where Saddam butchered the Kurds, Asad decimated Hama in 1982, killing thousands and destroying the ancient centre of a once-beautiful city.

Many of the new leadership in Syria in the 1960s came through the armed forces, who not only failed miserably to deal with Israel in 1967, but lost another chunk of territory –the Jawlan- to add to those Syria has lost since 1918. Asad promoted the Alawite to senior positions in the party and the army, groomed his sons for succession, and treated opponents with maximum force. The same reasoning is used today–if these protests can be contained by the army, over time they will decline, and the Ba’ath can claim victory while promising reforms. Except that the people have heard it all before and are no longer prepared to accept excuses and empty promises.

If you are Israeli, you watch nervously and just hope trouble doesn’t come your way. Israel’s response to democratic change in the Region has usually been to intervene to crush it, so maybe this paralysis is typical, as in –wait until the elections, then strike. On the one hand Israel benefits from a change of government from the insular Shi’a, Alawite regime in Damascus if it lessens the influence of Iran regionally, particularly if it dries up the transfers of arms and cash to Hezbollah in Lebanon –in the medium to long term this would weaken Hezbollah and offer Israeli the chance to destroy its ‘military infrastructure’. On the other hand it doesn’t benefit if a new government in Damascus is belligerent –nobody benefits from that anyway- or for that matter, conciliatory –so terrified of peace negotiations are the current bunch of extremists in Jerusalem, that if a new democratic Syria offered to negotiate a peace treaty with a transfer of land and the return of Palestinian refugees living in Syria to their homeland –just two reasonable issues- Israel would find 101 or maybe 1,001 reasons not to talk.

If you are Turkey the crisis offers another opportunity to prove that the boss is back, as if the current version of Turk is any more welcome in ‘the Syrian provinces’ than the last lot. It offers Turkey an opportunity to round up the Kurds based in Syria whom it claims are feeding terrorism in Turkey; but it could merely inflame the Syrian demand that the Sanjak of Alexandretta, which the atheists called Hatay and seized violently in 1938, be returned to its motherland. No love lost there, nor found, it seems.

If you are Russia, a key concern is the security of their agreement to let the Russians park their warships (and who knows what else) in the Mediterranean port of Tartus, and the opportunity, diplomatically, to wind up everyone on the Security Council who isn’t Russian or Chinese. The Russians are currently suffering from attention deficit disorder, and Syria is the last significant country in the Middle East in which Russia has a presence. The Russians, like the Chinese (see below) are involved in the Syrian petroleum industry and have emerged as the most likely sponsors of the development of a nuclear power industry in the country, which will of course be used for peaceful purposes to create new energy resources...

For the Chinese, it’s a case of Follow the Money –with the Chinese economy slowing down the last thing they need is to lose their annual $2bn worth of trade with Syria, although they are also in partnership with Shell and the Syrian state firm that is developing Syria’s relatively modest petroleum resources, so they will be around for some time. They are involved in various attempts to ‘re-build’ the silk road in iron, for example their ambitious plan to build a railway that will link the Mediterranean to Beijing through Syria, Iran, and Central Asia. China, ominously perhaps, declared in 2005 that the age of Chinese passivity in the Middle East is over. However, this does seem to be economic rather than political, as China sees Syria as being on the fringe of the Europe into which Chinese goods flow, and which is thus part of the ‘neighbourhood’ in which Chinese goods are sold. It is therefore not in China’s interests to have their trading relationship disrupted, so for the time being they want the current regime to remain in charge. Nevertheless, if a new regime comes in, such is the power of money the Chinese could retain their growth status in the region (as is also the case with China in Africa). It remains to be seen how successful in the long term any of China’s overseas partnership strategies work.

If you are France, then like Turkey, you can call on history as some justification to ‘be there’, even if that history is characterised by political failure. It was the silk merchants of Lyon who, amongst others, invested in the textile industry of the Levant in the 19th century, giving France a ‘claim’ on those provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire where they ended up, via the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.

British forces under Allenby had entered Damascus in 1918 to join with the Arab forces under the Hashemite Feisal (and his ‘adviser’ Col TE Lawrence) where the Arabs recognised Feisal as their titular head, but the British under the secret treaty with France had to withdraw, leaving the French military to invade and claim it as their ‘mandate’.
They started as they intended to continue: General Gouraud resting his boot on the grave of Salah–al-Din in Damascus, and shouting We’re Back! They then proceeded to divide Syria on the basis of confessional/identity groupings –Christian, Alawite, Druzes, Sunni etc. Even the armed forces set up in the mandate, the Troupes Speciales deliberately excluded Sunni muslims, who made up around 65% of the population, thus giving military experience to Alawite, Druzes, Christians, Circassians and other minorities. Syria also took over the Sanjak of Alexandretta in 1923 which the atheists seized through military force in 1936 that neither France nor Britain resisted, calling it Hatay. Syria to this day claims sovereignty of Alexandretta.

Throughout the Mandate there were uprisings against French rule, a non-stop headache that threatened to turn into a migraine when Syria sided with the Vichy government before the clique was, sort of thrown out by allied forces in 1941. The French remained in Syria, but retained mostly the same people who had run it on behalf of the Vichy regime. These people now believed it was their duty to serve France by acting against the almighty British in the region –this meant the active support of Jewish terrorists in Palestine, mostly through the Damascus-based Bureau Noir, neither the first nor the last example of Syria offering safe haven to terrorists. That France today continues to cling to some faded memories, glorious or inglourious, that it likes the idea that French is –or rather, was- the second language after Arabic of Lebanon and Syria, says more about France than it does about Syria. The French themselves helped to create a divided, fractured country in which religious and national differences were accentuated rather than diluted, for that reason alone it is a pity they can’t acknowledge the mess they played in modern Syria and stay at home, which as yet is not something that can be guaranteed.

For the USA, the crisis in Syria exposes the weakest position that the USA has been in the region since George H Bush ousted Iraq from Kuwait. All the gains that the President of Charm, Bill Clinton, made in the 1990s were trashed by George W Bush. Had Barack Obama from the outset played tough with Israel, he might have been able to persuade the Arabs that the bias in favour of Israel which began under LBJ is subject to review. However, Obama’s advisers, particularly Rahm Emmanuel and Dennis Ross, tended to suggest the gradualist soft-shoe shuffle as an operational tactic, except that Netanyahu doesn’t dance, just encourages settlers to break the law and treats the President of the USA with contempt. It is important because right now the USA has little or no leverage in the region outside its long-established relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan (I am assuming King Abdullah gets the monthly thank-you cheques his dad used to rely on. In return, Hussein gave the US raw intelligence on other Arab leaders). Maintaining regional order is the USA’s priority at a time when Israel is threatening to attack Iran. However, there may be some backroom diplomacy going on in which the USA is offering moral support to the opposition in Syria, and, in the long term, vague guarantees about protecting a fledgling democracy in Syria, possibly using Qatar as a conduit for these messages.

The paradox of Syria is similar to the paradox of Iraq. Two countries with the natural and intellectual resources to be the most successful industrial and agricultural powers in the Middle East. One of them, Iraq, has absolutely nothing to show for 80 years of oil production, while Syria, a country famed for its merchants, its engineers and poets has made business such an ordeal the average Abdul couldn’t make a profit selling falafel outside a football ground. The One Party State, specifically the Ba’ath party, has been a comprehensive disaster for these two countries. Incompetence, corruption, nepotism, discrimination, and despair have been the dominant themes in the country’s life.



And yet, Syria, Aleppo and Damascus especially, were famous for being liberal outposts in a conservative region. Many middle aged Arabs lost their virginity in the brothels of Damascus to the ladies of Russia, Moldova and the Ukraine if they had the money; or to other Arabs or, cheapest of all, the gypsies. Gay men knew which bath-houses they could go to meet other gay men (the Nour ad-Din Hamman in Old Damascus was a magnet for locals and expats). There is a long tradition of secular humanism in Syria, its intellectuals have tended to be on the left, when they weren't in prison; yet the Muslim Brotherhood has been around for more than six decades and may be the only coherent political force to emerge from this mess. But first, the Ba’ath Party has to go, and how that happens, I do not know.

As for the almonds and pistachio nuts, ah Syria!

[Dino Velvet]

My apologies for the length of this reply.

Don't apologize. That post or book took a lot of thought and effort and I appreciate it. Thank you. Dissecting the planet was helpful too.

[onmyknees]

I love how humane all the right wingers here are - while children are being slaughtered. Not a jot of compassion from them. Oh how the world should look forward to President Santorum - a signal that the lunatics really will have taken over the asylum.

I assume you're referring to me. How about you limeys pony up some more men for the mid east meat grinder ? Ron Paul is right in this respect...Since the beginning of time this region has been slaughtering each other. Why should the US give more blood and treasure to keep the warring factions separate for a few years? You sound like you're still of eligible age......sign your ass up and go off to save some lives in Syria. Chances are you'll come back a few limbs shorter than when you left. You deplore the war in Iraq...but want us to intervene in Syria and Libya? Get a grip, lib.

[Prospero]

Did I say anything about intervening in Syria? (and yes we ponyed up plenty of people for Iraq and Afghanistan)

[Stavros]

I assume you're referring to me. How about you limeys pony up some more men for the mid east meat grinder ? Ron Paul is right in this respect...Since the beginning of time this region has been slaughtering each other. Why should the US give more blood and treasure to keep the warring factions separate for a few years? You sound like you're still of eligible age......sign your ass up and go off to save some lives in Syria. Chances are you'll come back a few limbs shorter than when you left. You deplore the war in Iraq...but want us to intervene in Syria and Libya? Get a grip, lib.

Having learned our lesson in Iraq, I don't see direct military intervention as a feasible tactic to bring down the Ba'ath regime and neutralise the armed forces, including the Republican Guard run by Bashar's brother. As with Libya, supplying weapons through Turkey and Jordan to rebels would not be dfficult, but would prolong the violence. A significant portion of the army has to defect to create a new agenda in Syria, for the time being we are stuck with what we have.

Britain is in a difficult position as the prospect of a deterioration in Syria must be set against the more alarming situation taking place in Argentina and the Falkland Islands/Malvinas.

Too many young men have been killed or wounded for life in Iraq and Afghanistan, its not like Britain shied away from those war zones; and I don't want see anyone else killed, whoever they are, wherever they are.

[hippifried]

I think everybody's trying to read too much into what's going on.
Assad, like any dictator, is trying to hang onto power. To be expected. Russia & China vetoed the Security Council resolution because it was a demand for him to step down, with a UN mandate to enforce it. Forced regime change. Sound familiar? They probably would have been on board for the same actions taken in Libya. Diplomacy won't work. He has to go, but it has to be his idea. Either that or the opposition gets to him. There was some high mucky muck general taken out by an assassin today. Assad doesn't need to be killed outright. Just get real close so he knows he can be had, & he'll bail on his own. If not, oh well. Iran won't get involved & neither will the Saudis. Jordan's already under extreme internal pressures to be rid of the monarchy. Saudi Arabia's on the list.

Israel isn't a player in any of this at all. Must piss them off to no end, but who cares? They made themselves insignificant. They're not going to attack Iran. Neither are we. When they bombed Iraq, they only had to violate Jordanian airspace. To attack Iran, they'd have to go through us or Turkey. They need permission before trying to push their way through somebody who has the wherewithal to knock them out of the sky.

As for the lack of empathy from a segment of the political sphere: Some (Rustaffa) is just mindless hatred. Others from the US is just mindless. Most of this week's isolationists would be all gung ho to go into Syria & kick ass if President Obama woud just say he's against it.

[Prospero]

I agree with this.
Stavros wrote: "Too many young men have been killed or wounded for life in Iraq and Afghanistan, its not like Britain shied away from those war zones; and I don't want see anyone else killed, whoever they are, wherever they are."

[russtafa]

I think everybody's trying to read too much into what's going on.
Assad, like any dictator, is trying to hang onto power. To be expected. Russia & China vetoed the Security Council resolution because it was a demand for him to step down, with a UN mandate to enforce it. Forced regime change. Sound familiar? They probably would have been on board for the same actions taken in Libya. Diplomacy won't work. He has to go, but it has to be his idea. Either that or the opposition gets to him. There was some high mucky muck general taken out by an assassin today. Assad doesn't need to be killed outright. Just get real close so he knows he can be had, & he'll bail on his own. If not, oh well. Iran won't get involved & neither will the Saudis. Jordan's already under extreme internal pressures to be rid of the monarchy. Saudi Arabia's on the list.

Israel isn't a player in any of this at all. Must piss them off to no end, but who cares? They made themselves insignificant. They're not going to attack Iran. Neither are we. When they bombed Iraq, they only had to violate Jordanian airspace. To attack Iran, they'd have to go through us or Turkey. They need permission before trying to push their way through somebody who has the wherewithal to knock them out of the sky.

As for the lack of empathy from a segment of the political sphere: Some (Rustaffa) is just mindless hatred. Others from the US is just mindless. Most of this week's isolationists would be all gung ho to go into Syria & kick ass if President Obama woud just say he's against it.
hippie yah weak hippy shit grow some balls man.do you want a bunch of rag heads living next to you if you do you are fucking nuts never help the dirty scum

[Prospero]

Now one simply has to use the word jews instead of whatever racist word Russtafa spews when expressing his hatred for Muslims to see where he is coming from.

[russtafa]

Now one simply has to use the word jews instead of whatever racist word Russtafa spews when expressing his hatred for Muslims to see where he is coming from.
wow jews don't deal drugs don't blow up trains,planes ,don't harass the local population .you liberals imported these fucking pieces of shit into Europe and you love them so much why don't you ass kissing liberals go and live with them in the middle east and give the camel jockeys the comfort they deserve i'm sure they will let you suck their cocks lol

[Stavros]

In answer to Fred41’s earlier query about the political landscape inside Syria.

Historically, Syria presents itself as the heart of Arab nationalism, the first nationalist gatherings against Ottoman rule took place in Damascus in the 1880s, and from there the same kind of nationalism/national self-determination trend that had begun earlier in the 20th century grew in the Arab world. Syria has also claimed to have maintained this implacable hostility to foreign domination by appearing to reject every peace treaty with Israel and US interventions in the region–fine, yet the only way Bashar al-Asad could signify that any kind of change was going to happen in Syria was by continuing the import of foreign capital his father started in the 1990s.

Globalisation has exposed the fierce independence of Syria as a sham; it was isolation all along. And, economic growth since the 1990s is really economic management: foreign capital, be it Russian or Chinese, or partnership ventures with multinationals like Shell is part of the State directing economic behaviour. Free enterprise, which does not exist in Syria, could have created a vibrant and diverse economy; instead, central planning and a grace-and-favour system benefits those who now don’t want to lose their slice of the cake and grudgingly support Asad, but not the rural farming communities who have lost out to Asad’s limited and ineffective policy.

As far as the organisations go, it sort of looks like this, given that changes take place on a regular basis.

Ba’ath Party –the dominant political force, although initially a form of National Socialism for the Arabs, the ideological complexion was ditched by Hafiz al-Asad and became simply an instrument of power for the minority Alawite sect and their friends.

Muslim Brotherhood –the oldest political formation in the country was established not long after its creation in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood was been pummelled into submission by the violence of the state following its challenge for power between 1975 and 1983, and was as shocked as its Egyptian brothers by the uprisings and the power they represent. Currently trying to get its act together and is part of the Syrian National Council (see below).

Syrian National Council –this is one of two main opposition groupings who, in time-honoured Syrian fashion, don’t talk to each other. To complicate matters further, the SNC is itself a coalition of groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood; the Damascus Declaration Group (mostly reform-minded secular intellectuals); the so-called Istanbul Gathering (technocrats and moderate Muslims who formed an alliance in the safety of Istanbul), some Kurdish activists and some representatives of the Assyrians, the ancient non-Arab community mostly in the North and North-East who number around a million out of a total population of approx 22m. There would be more but the Assyrians were massacred around the same time as the Armenians in the Ottoman period (c1880-1923), a grim story that is as poorly understood as the Armenian one.

The National Co-ordination Committee –another coalition, this time of about 13 different parties and groups mostly on the left including Kurds and youth activists.

In spite of these two blocs representing so many different people, Christians, some Assyrians, the Druzes, and those Shi’a who are not part of the Alawite elite, are not well organised.

The principal difference between the two blocs, so far, is that where the NCC has called for dialogue with the regime if it stops the violence and releases political prisoners, and then work out a new system, the SNC rejects dialogue on any issue other than the dissolution of the Ba’ath regime and the transition to a new system. Both are opposed to foreign intervention, but so far it seems external powers have favoured the more moderate NCC over the SNC.

The Free Syrian Army –considered to be a sectarian group of disaffected Sunni officers whose leader organised the FSA in Turkey. Depending on who you believe they claim a membership of 10-15,000 but the FSA seems to be made up of different groups within it, and it is not clear who they are, although they are believed to be part of the resistance in cities such as Homs and Hama.

Youth Groups –young people, some as young as 17 have been the driving force behind the uprisings, many, but not all plugged into global social networks. Where they have organised, it has been in the form of local committees some of whom have allied themselves with the SNC –for example, some committees formed a Higher Council of the Syrian Revolution, and are allied with the Syrian National Council.

Some of the youth groups are Muslim activists, some are secular. The more extreme Salafi movement is based in the North-West in Deir al-Zor and historically was allowed to flourish as long as it spied on and informed on the operation of other Muslim groups, which it did.

In other words, there are a gallery of political actors in Syria, all are opposed to foreign military intervention; all want a change of regime, but where the SNC will not open a dialogue on this but in effect demands the resignation of the entire government, the NCC would accept a ceasefire followed by a phased transition to a new political system.

[fred41]

In answer to Fred41’s earlier query about the political landscape inside Syria.


Thank you Stavros.
This and your previous post gave me a history lesson on Syria that was informative and very easy to digest (I read your last post with a crushing hangover and still managed to navigate through it and, more important, commit it to memory).
Don't know if your a teacher, journalist or something along that vein.. but you're very good at it.
Thanks again.

[Stavros]

Thanks for the compliments Fred, I would like to think that the Syrians could find an easier way out of this mess, but reality is usually messy and when a country has done all it can to prevent people from getting experience in politics over many years that only makes it harder. The regime is isolated, but so too was Saddam's for some time. I am not the only person here with some familiarity with the region, but there are other points of view than mine, some of them caustic, some even more pessimistic than mine. It is still too early to tell what will happen.

[hippifried]

hippie yah weak hippy shit grow some balls man.do you want a bunch of rag heads living next to you if you do you are fucking nuts never help the dirty scum
Thanks for verifying my statement about you & mindless hatred.

I don't give a shit who lives next door. Right now I'm surrounded by people who look swarthy & speak a foreign language. It's not a problem & never has been. Not anywhere. You're just another pussy who's scared of his own shadow. I'm not impressed by any of your bogus gumbah tough guy bullshit at all. Boo! You're tryin' to tell me to grow a pair? Go slink back under your rock & hide some more. You're the only one who's pissin' your pants scared of somebody else & cryin' about it.

[russtafa]

Thanks for verifying my statement about you & mindless hatred.

I don't give a shit who lives next door. Right now I'm surrounded by people who look swarthy & speak a foreign language. It's not a problem & never has been. Not anywhere. You're just another pussy who's scared of his own shadow. I'm not impressed by any of your bogus gumbah tough guy bullshit at all. Boo! You're tryin' to tell me to grow a pair? Go slink back under your rock & hide some more. You're the only one who's pissin' your pants scared of somebody else & cryin' about it.god you really are fucking dumb hippy,my mates have to leave because they force them out .Once a one of their fucking temples go's up that's it=they force you out.they don't want infidels living next to their temples to allah.gee information does not get into that thick fucking head of yours,they will never settle in my area because a lot of houses are owned by jews

[Dino Velvet]

I figured this might happen eventually too.

Al-Qaida leader Zawahri praises Syrian protesters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/28/al-qaida-zawahri-syria

[onmyknees]

[QUOTE=Stavros;1093048]My apologies for the length of this reply.



For the USA, the crisis in Syria exposes the weakest position that the USA has been in the region since George H Bush ousted Iraq from Kuwait. All the gains that the President of Charm, Bill Clinton, made in the 1990s were trashed by George W Bush. Had Barack Obama from the outset played tough with Israel, he might have been able to persuade the Arabs that the bias in favour of Israel which began under LBJ is subject to review. However, Obama’s advisers, particularly Rahm Emmanuel and Dennis Ross, tended to suggest the gradualist soft-shoe shuffle as an operational tactic, except that Netanyahu doesn’t dance, just encourages settlers to break the law and treats the President of the USA with contempt. It is important because right now the USA has little or no leverage in the region outside its long-established relations with Saudi Arabia and Jordan (I am assuming King Abdullah gets the monthly thank-you cheques his dad used to rely on. In return, Hussein gave the US raw intelligence on other Arab leaders). Maintaining regional order is the USA’s priority at a time when Israel is threatening to attack Iran. However, there may be some backroom diplomacy going on in which the USA is offering moral support to the opposition in Syria, and, in the long term, vague guarantees about protecting a fledgling democracy in Syria, possibly using Qatar as a conduit for these messages.



This is pure folly. You're one of those arm chair intellectuals who sits behind his keyboard with too much time on his hands and oozes out your pabulum. I think you like to hear yourself talk. Your anti Semitism comes through like a bright light in this, and most of your other overly verbose posts. So it was the Jews in the administration that strong armed Obama into his permissive tact towards Israel? That my friend in pure unadulterated anti Semitism...and what does it say about Obama that he can be led around by the nose by his Jews? You're hopeless foolish and naive if you think any living man can "persuade" the Arabs anything. You must have been dozing for the first year of the Obama Administration where he traveled the Muslim world often, flashed his Muslim family credentials, and played nice with every Muslim country....even was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his apologies.....and to what end?
You would have us believe that Netanyahu's disdain form Obama is simply unwarranted. As if he fabricated it without cause....Doesn't this Jew realize what we've done for him? lol
As far as your "charmer", Bill Clinton, he forfeited the gains he achieved in his first term with the attack on Iraq, and the Lewinski affair in his second. You may or may not recall Madeline Albright didn't even visit the region for nearly a year as Clinton was distracted at home. Is that Netanyahu's fault as well? To develop a peace process you need honest brokers. Arafat could never be put in that category, and BiBi knew it. Additionally it was Arafat who walked away from the Camp David deal, and it was Clinton who clearly blamed him for the impasse. You seem to have short term memory loss when it pertains to certain facts. Arafat once said to Clinton..."You are a great man" Clinton is said to have responded..."I am not a great man, I am a failure, and you made it so" . Better go back and hit the history books. Your version is sorely lacking perspective.

[trish]

On with the ad hominem attacks! CHARGE!

[Dino Velvet]

Trish, any opinion on the Syrian situation? I'd like your opinion too.

[trish]

Trish, any opinion on the Syrian situation? I'd like your opinion too.
None I'm willing to defend or worth repeating. I certainly don't want to see any more U.S. troops lose their lives in the Middle East or anybody else's troops. But I certainly detest seeing Syrian civilians being killed and trammeled by an inhuman dictator. Finally, I'm certainly glad I don't number among those to whom people are turning to for a solution.

[Dino Velvet]

None I'm willing to defend or worth repeating.

That's your right. I respect that. I wanted to see how much agreement is on all sides. I don't want our military in there either even though I do not like what is going on there.

[onmyknees]

On with the ad hominem attacks! CHARGE!


Well if I don't tell him how lacking his post was....who will? You? Please. This type of bilge is passed off every day by liberal academics sympathetic to the Palestinians. .

His post reeked of anti Semitism. He had to be dealt with. I didn't see anything ad hominem about it...You're over reacting ...again.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=Stavros;1093048]
This is pure folly. You're one of those arm chair intellectuals who sits behind his keyboard with too much time on his hands and oozes out your pabulum. I think you like to hear yourself talk. Your anti Semitism comes through like a bright light in this, and most of your other overly verbose posts. So it was the Jews in the administration that strong armed Obama into his permissive tact towards Israel? That my friend in pure unadulterated anti Semitism...and what does it say about Obama that he can be led around by the nose by his Jews? You're hopeless foolish and naive if you think any living man can "persuade" the Arabs anything. You must have been dozing for the first year of the Obama Administration where he traveled the Muslim world often, flashed his Muslim family credentials, and played nice with every Muslim country....even was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for his apologies.....and to what end?
You would have us believe that Netanyahu's disdain form Obama is simply unwarranted. As if he fabricated it without cause....Doesn't this Jew realize what we've done for him? lol
As far as your "charmer", Bill Clinton, he forfeited the gains he achieved in his first term with the attack on Iraq, and the Lewinski affair in his second. You may or may not recall Madeline Albright didn't even visit the region for nearly a year as Clinton was distracted at home. Is that Netanyahu's fault as well? To develop a peace process you need honest brokers. Arafat could never be put in that category, and BiBi knew it. Additionally it was Arafat who walked away from the Camp David deal, and it was Clinton who clearly blamed him for the impasse. You seem to have short term memory loss when it pertains to certain facts. Arafat once said to Clinton..."You are a great man" Clinton is said to have responded..."I am not a great man, I am a failure, and you made it so" . Better go back and hit the history books. Your version is sorely lacking perspective.

I am not anti-semitic. There is a difference between being a critic of Israel and its politicians, and hating Jews. I have already defended the Jews from the preposterous argument that they are behind the problems of the world, that our world is run by Jewish bankers and all that crap-you can read it here:
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=63803

There is a large body of literature on the US-Israel relationship which tries to explain the different reasons why the US since the 1960s has shown a bias to this state, in spite of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 -sometimes it was for strategic reasons, in more recent times it has been partly pressure from Israel and its silly claim to be the 'only democracy' in the Middle East sharing the values of the USA (which simply isn't true), and partly the support for Israel that comes from Christian fundamentalists who believe the Second Coming will take place in the same place where Jesus last appeared, but who then believe the Jews must convert or be consigned to hell -not exactly a pro-Jewish stance.

Your own understanding of the history of your own times is shaped by your loathing of Democrats and the recorded fact that the only two Presidents to have brokered a peace between Israel and the Arabs since 1948 were Democrats. What have the Republicans achieved?

Clinton alienated a lot of the same people he might have won over in the first half of the 90s with the imposition of sanctions on Iraq, I didn't actually say Clinton was a runaway success, charm goes a long way but not far enough. But Arafat did sign a peace treaty, when Yitzhak Rabin was the democratically elected leader of Israel. Netanyahu and his boss, Ariel Sharon, were in opposition and opposed this historic deal from the start. At Camp David in 2000, it was the democratically elected Ehud Barak along with Arafat who failed to find the formula to conclude the process that had begun in 1993. Arafat was offered something he could not accept, it is as simple as that.

Netanyahu was not part of the process, he never wanted to be. His entire political lineage from Jabotinsky and Stern to the present day has been shaped by a belief that there is nothing to negotiate.

Every year Netanyahu celebrates the terrorist attack on the King David Hotel in 1946, a bombing that killed 91 people -including Jews- and injured 45, a bombing carried out by the Irgun and condemned by the Jewish Agency -this outrageous annual celebration of terror speaks volumes for the divisions in Israel as much as the loathsome politics of Netanyahu -but the truth is Israelis are more bitterly critical of him than even I am, but then I suppose to you they must be 'self-hating Jews' -for what? Not wanting to see their country dragged into the gutter by this man or his foul-mouthed buddy Avigdor Liberman?

If there is to be a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, both sides have to offer concessions -in the past it was the USA that acted as an honest broker, and delivered. However imperfect the details have been, the mere fact that it happened is something for which, as an American, you should be proud.

Ironically, it is true, I am an armchair intellectual, as I am now semi-retired but still willing to produce if asked. The difference between the two of us is that I have connections to Palestine and Syria that you do not not, but forgive me if I dont think my family history should be aired for your entertainment. In addition, I have lived on the West Bank, not you; I have researched and published on the region, not you. That doesn't mean I am right, my posts here are my interpretations, complete with errors of fact, twisted logic, or whatever other failings you can attribute to me.

On my last trip to the Israel State Archive in Jerusalem, I stayed in Arab East Jerusalem where I had once lived -and loved- before. I walked through the Jaffa Gate in the opposite direction Allenby took when claiming victory in November 1917. I turned right on my way into Jewish West Jerusalem for a coffee in one of the pavement cafes they have there. On the way I passed a fast food joint: McDavid. You need to go to Israel/Palestine and see the misery of the occupation, listen to the violent, hysterical garbage of religious extremists on all sides; and then experience the humour and the love of life that Israelis and Palestinians express in their music, their poetry, their food, and make a choice, just as the people who live there must choose.

And realise that amidst all this humiliation and pain, people fall in love and get married; protest at the price of housing; watch American movies and American tv; and Arab boys furtively search for sex with Jewish boys (well, anyone will do) in the parks at night; and crack jokes; and you can get a Kosher burger that is even cheaper than McDonalds.

Against all the odds, you end up being an optimist; because the alternative is despair, and that is the road to nowhere littered with dead and mutilated bodies where nothing is achieved, and we are all better than that, and capable of better things.

[trish]

OMK, your post is a paradigm example of pure pablum oozed from the pours of an armchair layabout. And please don't insult our intelligence by conflating that statement of pure fact with ad hominem argumentation.

[hippifried]

god you really are fucking dumb hippy,my mates have to leave because they force them out .Once a one of their fucking temples go's up that's it=they force you out.they don't want infidels living next to their temples to allah.gee information does not get into that thick fucking head of yours,they will never settle in my area because a lot of houses are owned by jews
So now you're hiding behind Jews? What makes you think they'd have a problem with Muslims in the neighborhood? Got any more lame stereotypes to toss around? Might as well get them all out. The only "information" you've managed to impart is that you're a punk. Apparently, so are your "mates", who are such pussies that they'd rather pack up & run away than take a chance on catching Muslim cooties or some such horseshit. I've heard all the lame excuses for white flight for the last half century. Forced out? Bullshit! It always comes down to the runners being a bunch of pathelogical wimps who are too stupid to know that they don't know shit.

[russtafa]

hey hippie i worked nightclubs for over ten years yah punk .i like jews they don't cause trouble not like mussies yah shithead.how many jews in side for assault =not many.how many mussies in jail=fucking heaps ,dickhead

[muh_muh]

i love how the resident australian village idiot keeps increasing the depth of his hole with every single post

[hippifried]

I don't care how many floors you've mopped. A punk is just a punk. You're nothing more than an upside down version of the sheet monkeys we have over here.


Back on topic:
Invasion doesn't work. Heavy handed military action doesn't work anywhere. It's always resented by the people in the line of fire. whatever happens, keep it covert & deniable.

[Faldur]

Invasion doesn't work. Heavy handed military action doesn't work anywhere. It's always resented by the people in the line of fire. whatever happens, keep it covert & deniable.

Dang, dare I say it.. totally agree.. i need to phone my therapist.

[russtafa]

i love how the resident australian village idiot keeps increasing the depth of his hole with every single postsuck my big dirty cock cunt

[giovanni_hotel]

It's the Arab League's problem, not ours. If those countries aren't willing to marshal their military assets to save the lives of Syrian civilians, why is Uncle Sam expected to intervene??

In case you haven't noticed, the U.S.A's rep in the Middle East when it comes to military intervention is lower than shit.

At best we make the situation worse.

I feel for those people with all my heart, but they need to ask themselves why their Arab brothers are watching them being slaughtered in the thousands and stand by and do nothing.

THe Saudis and Egyptians alone have the military might to overthrow the Bashir regime in 48 hours. Ask them why they choose not to act.

Newsflash, the world is a shitty place. There are crises happening all over the globe, all the time.

Captain America can't save everyone.

[russtafa]

It's the Arab League's problem, not ours. If those countries aren't willing to marshal their military assets to save the lives of Syrian civilians, why is Uncle Sam expected to intervene??

In case you haven't noticed, the U.S.A's rep in the Middle East when it comes to military intervention is lower than shit.

At best we make the situation worse.

I feel for those people with all my heart, but they need to ask themselves why their Arab brothers are watching them being slaughtered in the thousands and stand by and do nothing.

THe Saudis and Egyptians alone have the military might to overthrow the Bashir regime in 48 hours. Ask them why they choose not to act.

Newsflash, the world is a shitty place. There are crises happening all over the globe, all the time.

Captain America can't save everyone.
The only bloke on this site that's a realist not a bleeding heart

[hippifried]

I feel for those people with all my heart, but they need to ask themselves why their Arab brothers are watching them being slaughtered in the thousands and stand by and do nothing.
They already know the answer to that. Aside from the 3 countries that were overthrown by popular uprising last year, the rest of the Arab league is ruled by the same kind of kings, princes, & asshole dictators as Assad. The US & Europe have gone out of their way to prop up one man rule in the region for the last century at least. Don't kid yourself. Nobody on this planet has ever given a shit about the Arab peoples, including their own rulers. That's why they're so pissed off. They were cut off from the rest of the world so it'd be easier to get them to buy into the various lines of bullshit they've been fed. Not anymore. The powers that be in the Arab League won't turn on Assad because they know they're the next target of the regional uprising.

[russtafa]

hippie has already told me he does not give a shit about the rest of the world? cunt can't keep his shit right

[hippifried]

hippie has already told me he does not give a shit about the rest of the world? cunt can't keep his shit right
Oh really? If you want to quote me, go ahead. I don't mind. But don't lie about what I say. Everything here is in writing. Paste it up, punky boy.

I don't give a shit about you, but you're not the rest of the world.

[russtafa]

Oh really? If you want to quote me, go ahead. I don't mind. But don't lie about what I say. Everything here is in writing. Paste it up, punky boy.

I don't give a shit about you, but you're not the rest of the world.
you are just a fucking pimple hippie

[Prospero]

Russtafa - argument is one thing, simple abuse is another. Offer your arguements but name calling is just a waste of space. It demeans you.

[russtafa]

i used to stand on hippies for a laugh in the seventies .i am being nice these days.when we were kids hippies were great fun cause every one knows they hate work and washing and love drugs,their sluts everyone can root and they are weak.now i am a responsible citizen but worrying about mussies who hate the infidel and would kill most of you lot without a second thought is like a mouse worrying about a cat.to kill an infidel is one step to heaven

[Prospero]

First part of your message connected to the latter part?

So you relish your adolescent thuggery - picking on those you perceived as weak. If you and your mates were now to come upon a Muslim alone on a dark street at night, would you do the same to him i.e. "stand on" or worse? Just wondering?

[russtafa]

i would help him on the first boat back to where he came from and you and your liberal buddies that love the mussies so much could go with him

[Prospero]

Ahh... I see forced deportation to begin with. If that doesn't work, then what? Some nice camps to keep 'em away from the rest of you nice white Aussies? (And i guess you'd put folks like me and maybe mental defectives in the camp as well). I don't think you've thought this through properly. You gotta have some kind of final solution to sort out he Muslim question surely?

[russtafa]

Ahh... I see forced deportation to begin with. If that doesn't work, then what? Some nice camps to keep 'em away from the rest of you nice white Aussies? (And i guess you'd put folks like me and maybe mental defectives in the camp as well). I don't think you've thought this through properly. You gotta have some kind of final solution to sort out he Muslim question surely?no i talked to so Cambodians and Vietnam and i asked them about muslims and they laughed and said they just kill them when they find them in their countries so i reckon they are great citizens for Australia, but you lot yes re-education camps or just dump you with the muslims and if they kill you tough luck, you love them you be with them.most people here whatever religion or race except muslims hate them,i suppose it might be from their meeting them in their own countries

[Prospero]

Funny that Russtafa. I've worked on and off in Muslim countries quite a lot for a few years and like any group there are good ones and bad ones. On the whole though, you know, they are people. Ordinary people. They happen to go to mosques rather than churches or synagogues or buddhist temples or whatever. I'm not a big fan of islam but then I'm not a fan of Catholicism or the Baptists or any organised religion really either.

[russtafa]

i guess a lot of people around the world are not fans of that religion either .enough to kill them,wow so extreme wonder why that is

[trish]

There are Christians in the U.S. who murder obstetricians and invoke name of Jesus to justify the heinous act. Using your logic, russtafa, the few are representative of the whole and we'd be justified in killing all cross kissing chrissies.


suck my ... dirty cock ...
How repulsive is that? An unwashed Australian with a smelly, filth encrusted dicklet. Take a bath and clean up your act. Really, you are the perfect example of an unthinking hate-filled, knee-jerk conservative jerk-off. You do your 'cause' considerably more harm than ... well you don't do it any good at all, which is why I haven't clicked the ignore button yet. Keep up the 'good' work hate-boy ;)

[russtafa]

There are Christians in the U.S. who murder obstetricians and invoke name of Jesus to justify the heinous act. Using your logic, russtafa, the few are representative of the whole and we'd be justified in killing all cross kissing chrissies.


How repulsive is that? An unwashed Australian with a smelly, filth encrusted dicklet. Take a bath and clean up your act. Really, you are the perfect example of an unthinking hate-filled, knee-jerk conservative jerk-off. You do your 'cause' considerably more harm than ... well you don't do it any good at all, which is why I haven't clicked the ignore button yet. Keep up the 'good' work hate-boy ;)cheers i do my best :dancing:

[Stavros]

It's the Arab League's problem, not ours. If those countries aren't willing to marshal their military assets to save the lives of Syrian civilians, why is Uncle Sam expected to intervene??
In case you haven't noticed, the U.S.A's rep in the Middle East when it comes to military intervention is lower than shit.
At best we make the situation worse.
I feel for those people with all my heart, but they need to ask themselves why their Arab brothers are watching them being slaughtered in the thousands and stand by and do nothing.
THe Saudis and Egyptians alone have the military might to overthrow the Bashir regime in 48 hours. Ask them why they choose not to act.
Newsflash, the world is a shitty place. There are crises happening all over the globe, all the time.
Captain America can't save everyone.

Giovanni, the Arab League may be able to set a tone of outrage, withdraw their ambassadors, and embarrass the Syrians, but in practical terms intervention is a very risky strategy. Not only would it be unpopular, there would have to be a coherent exit strategy, and unlike Libya, it is not clear that such an intervention would succeed. Libya was a success in part because it did not have a conventional army, as is the case in Syria, and in part because the rebels were being armed from external suppliers, being trained by officers from the Qatari armed forces, and had vital air cover and support from the French and the British.

The history of inter-Arab interventions has been poor, suggesting the precedents warn against it. For example,

In 1962 the Imam al-Badr was overthrown in a coup a week after inheriting the leadership of Yemen from his father. The coup had been mounted by Arab Nationalists supported by the Egyptian leader Nasser who at that time was still in his prime as the man who ‘defeated’ Britain France and Israel in the Suez crisis in 1956, he was pro-Soviet (they were the source of most of his armaments) but who was to the Royal Arab regimes in the 1960s as aggressive a threat as the Ayatollahs have been since 1979.

The result was a war in which the Egyptians fought alongside Yemeni, against a smaller group of Yemeni who supported the Imam, backed by Britain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. A group of mostly British mercenaries also got stuck in on the Imam’s side. The logistics for the so-called Royalists were provided by Britain, whose primary concern was the security of the port and oil refinery at Aden on the south coast. And yet, Britain acknowledged secretly to Kennedy that it actually preferred the Republican option, but to do so would have been a victory for Nasser, and Britain didn’t want that, nor did either King Hussein or King Feisal of Saudi Arabia. Incidentally, the arms were supplied by the Israelis who took them across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, but the war ground to a stalemate and was overtaken by Egypt’s defeat in the 1967 war, and in 1969 the Imam fled to Britain where he died, so eventually the republicans got what they wanted, sort of. The moral being: the intervention prolonged an internal dispute in which most of the parties wanted the Republicans to win anyway, but not if it meant a victory for Nasser. It cost millions of $$, thousands of lives, and exacerbated existing tensions in the Yemen which then split into two states.

Even before this civil war had ended, a guerrilla war broke out in Dhofar in neighbouring Oman. The guerrillas, who claimed to be Marxist revolutionaries, were fighting a weird autocrat, Sultan Said bin Taimur, who owned the only car in the country, and a man who thought education would be the ruin of Oman. Oil exploration in the interior at this time had failed, so the man had little money. Nevertheless, the British, along with the Saudis, the Jordanians and the Iranians, put together a military force which took on the guerrillas and fought them to a standstill. I once met a soldier who had been there and who assured me that if was the fact that British officers led the campaign which were the cause of its success. The guerrillas were being supplied, in a half-hearted fashion by the Chinese, but were a small group who, crucially, had little or no support among the majority population in the east and north of Muscat. When Said bin Taimur was visiting London in 1970, the Prime Minister, Edward Heath, put him under ‘house arrest’ in Claridges (an exclusive five-star hotel, where he lived until his death shortly after) so that his son, Qaboos could take over and begin the modernisation of Oman, which he has done. The guerrilla war ended and the rest is history.

As for Syria’s intervention in the civil war in Lebanon in 1976, that also can be argued prolonged the violence, but was complicated by the personal fight between Hafiz al-Asad and Yasser Arafat –anyway, it took the Lebanese nearly 30 years to get rid of them. From where I am sitting, intervention by another Arab state looks like a terrible option.



And anyway, for the Syria revolution to succeed, it is the people themselves who must make it. It is possible that there could be defections in the army, maybe even disaffected politicians around Asad, if the going gets bad enough for them to measure their chances in a new regime….difficult to predict the future on this one.

[Ben]

Maybe the focus should be Iran... ;)

The current state of US neo-con foreign policy discourse:

Family Guy - Visiting Ground Zero - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpP7b2lUxVE)

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iL9KDMQJZRNJyvucERqYd_An-2YQ?docId=9e39b2fc929e42ae9056131b5927d2c4


US softens stance on arms for Syria rebels
By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration opened the door slightly Tuesday to international military assistance for Syria's rebels, with officials saying new tactics may have to be explored if President Bashar Assad continues to defy pressure to halt a brutal crackdown on dissenters.
In coordinated messages, the White House and State Department said they still hope for a political solution. But faced with the daily onslaught by the Assad regime against Syrian civilians, officials dropped the administration's previous strident opposition to arming anti-regime forces. It remained unclear, though, what, if any, role the U.S. might play in providing such aid.
"We don't want to take actions that would contribute to the further militarization of Syria because that could take the country down a dangerous path," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. "But we don't rule out additional measures if the international community should wait too long and not take the kind of action that needs to be taken."
The administration has previously said flatly that more weapons are not the answer to the Syrian situation. There had been no mention of "additional measures."
At the State Department, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland used nearly identical language to describe the administration's evolving position.
"From our perspective, we don't believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarization of Syria," she told reporters. "What we don't want to see is the spiral of violence increase. That said, if we can't get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures."
Neither Carney nor Nuland would elaborate on what "additional measures" might be taken but there have been growing calls, including from some in Congress, for the international community to arm the rebels. Most suggestions to that effect have foreseen Arab nations such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia — and not the West — possibly providing military assistance.
Other officials said discussions are now under way about adding a military component to a package of humanitarian and political aid to the opposition that's to be discussed at a major international conference on Syria this week in Tunisia.
More than 70 countries have been invited to meet Friday in Tunisia for a "Friends of Syria" meeting. The meeting follows the failure of the UN Security Council to endorse an Arab plan that would have seen Assad removed from power.
The meeting of the "Friends of Syria" in Tunis is not likely to produce decisions on military aid or even recognition of Syria's disparate opposition groups, according to U.S. officials. But countries are considering creating large stockpiles of humanitarian aid along Syria's borders, the officials said.
U.S. officials stressed that discussion of military assistance is still preliminary. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. To maintain the pressure against Assad, Washington is trying to keep as many countries as possible involved in the international coordination against Syria's government — even if there is no consensus strategy on arming the rebels.
This week's talks will seek to clarify some of the confusion. The U.S. is trying to get a clearer picture of what promises countries such as Syria's Arab neighbors are making to elements of the opposition; which rebels each government might support; and some agreement on what types of assistance would be helpful or damaging.
The backdrop to the discussions is the increasing fear that Syria could descend into an all-out civil war.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon on Tuesday disputed reports that Iranian ships docked at a Syrian port over the weekend.
Iranian state-run Press TV said Saturday that an Iranian navy destroyer and a supply ship had docked in the port of Tartus to provide training to ally Syria's naval forces, as Syria tries to crush the opposition movement.
But Defense Department press secretary George Little said Tuesday the U.S. military saw no indication that the ships docked or delivered any cargo. Little said Tehran's ships went through the Suez Canal and now appear to be going back through the canal again.
Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/21/inside-syria-i-can-guarantee-people-will-starve-to-death/?hpt=hp_t3


Inside Syria: 'I can guarantee ... people will starve to death' (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/21/inside-syria-i-can-guarantee-people-will-starve-to-death/)

Editor's note: CNN correspondent Arwa Damon recently spent some time in Baba Amr, a neighborhood in Homs, Syria, a city that has been a flashpoint in a months-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Government forces have shelled parts of the city – especially Baba Amr, a bastion of anti-government sentiment – for more than two weeks, damaging houses and other buildings and leaving many dead and wounded.
Damon was one of the few international reporters in Syria, whose government has been placing restrictions on journalists and refusing many of them entry. Below is the latest in a string of edited accounts of what Damon and her team saw and heard from activists in Homs:
Virtually no food has come into Baba Amr since the shelling began more than two weeks ago, activists say. So, the residents who are gathered in makeshift bunkers collect what food they can find there and carefully ration it – though those supplies are running out.
Some of what they’ve gathered comes from, among other places, stores that have been hit by artillery fire.
“We take the products to distribute so they don’t go to waste. We keep track of everything we took to reimburse the owners,” an activist says.
In hard-hit Baba Amr, hundreds live in makeshift shelters, having left their homes out of necessity – many have been destroyed – or fear. Navigating the rubble-strewn streets of Baba Amr is made more difficult, activists say, by frequent shelling by government forces and by government snipers. Under cover of darkness, teams head to stores to gather what little supplies are left, quickly loading lentils, diapers and cracked wheat into vehicles.
At one of the shelters, a woman shows off the dwindling food supply.
“There is no food. There is only cracked wheat and rice,” she said.
Another woman, who is at the shelter because her home was destroyed, volunteers at a medical clinic in the neighborhood. She said she had coffee and two cigarettes for the day, and nothing for two days before that.
“I can guarantee you this, people will starve to death," she said.
Baba Amr has been "completely cut off and services are pretty much nonexistent," Dima Moussa, a Chicago lawyer and a Syrian opposition activist, told CNN on Tuesday (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/21/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html).
"Communicating with the activists in the area is becoming harder, so getting complete information about casualties is becoming difficult, and we think that the numbers far exceed those that we have been reporting, since we're only reporting those that we can confirm," she said.
The neighborhood has been "completely cut off and services are pretty much nonexistent," Moussa said.
Al-Assad has denied reports that his forces are targeting civilians, saying they are fighting armed gangs and foreign fighters bent on destabilizing the government. But many accounts inside the country say Syrian forces are killing civilians as part of a crackdown on anti-government opposition.
More detailed coverage of what's happening in Syria:
Monday, February 20: 'What is the world waiting for? For us to die of hunger and fear?' (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/20/inside-syria-what-is-the-world-waiting-for-for-us-to-die-of-hunger-and-fear/)
Saturday, February 18: Residents bracing for the worst in Homs (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/19/cnn-reports-from-inside-syria/)
Friday, February 17: Syrian protesters hail 'resistance' (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html)
Friday, February 17: In one Syrian town, full-throated cries of defiance (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/world/meast/syrian-north/index.html)
Thursday, February 16: Farmers, teachers, carpenters armed with rifles fear massacre (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/16/inside-syria-farmers-teachers-carpenters-armed-with-rifles-fear-massacre/?iref=allsearch)
Thursday, February 16: Wounds ooze, doctors cry in Syrian city (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/16/inside-syria-wounds-ooze-doctors-cry-in-syrian-city/)
Wednesday, February 15: Activists say trying to flee from homes under attack is virtually a suicide run (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/15/inside-syria-activists-say-trying-to-flee-from-homes-under-attack-is-virtually-a-suicide-run/)
Tuesday, February 14: Fearful residents prepare for a bloody battle (http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/14/inside-syria-fearful-residents-prepare-for-a-bloody-battle/)

[russtafa]

gee nobody ever hears about the disgusting shit going on in that failed experiment of a country called Zimbabwe because that dictator is black ,funny that the news media never brings that place to the attention of the world.i don't suppose the media[left wing] is biased .non of those other shit holes in Africa interfere in that country because their own backyards aren't to sweet.go the left wing do gooders and their shit they should have their noses rubbed in it .Malcom Frazier[ex PM for Australia] was one of the supporters of that fuck up ,the pick should have a rope around his neck

[trish]

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/zimbabwe/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/20/malawi-mutharika-mugabe-zimbabwe

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/02/20/world/africa/AP-AF-Zimbabwe.html?_r=1

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2012/0217/Will-2012-be-the-Year-of-the-African-Despot-again

[russtafa]

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/zimbabwe/index.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/20/malawi-mutharika-mugabe-zimbabwe

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/02/20/world/africa/AP-AF-Zimbabwe.html?_r=1

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2012/0217/Will-2012-be-the-Year-of-the-African-Despot-againthat's fuck all and what are the leaders of Africa doing about it?,sweet F.A or the world leaders?How about the rock stars=Bono,Geldolf,=sweet F.A .And why aren't the media in an outrage?

[trish]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17110754

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46463594/ns/world_news-africa/#.T0R_EswxOHk

http://www.voanews.com/zimbabwe/news/Zimbabwe-Education-Minister-Slams-Government-For-Underfunding-Schools-139872613.html

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/zimbabwe-not-ready-for-revolution-despite-repression-and-misery/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/world/africa/experts-say-diamonds-help-fill-mugabe-coffers.html?pagewanted=all

[Stavros]

gee nobody ever hears about the disgusting shit going on in that failed experiment of a country called Zimbabwe because that dictator is black ,funny that the news media never brings that place to the attention of the world.i don't suppose the media[left wing] is biased .non of those other shit holes in Africa interfere in that country because their own backyards aren't to sweet.go the left wing do gooders and their shit they should have their noses rubbed in it .Malcom Frazier[ex PM for Australia] was one of the supporters of that fuck up ,the pick should have a rope around his neck

Russtafa there is nothing to stop you starting a thread on Zimbabwe if it interests you that much; this is a thread on Syria. I sometimes feel you would be best advised to either read the papers on a regular basis or keep your mouth shut. There have been numerous stories in the press in the last seven days on Zimbabwe, its not a forgotten crisis at all.

Another set of links below, including an article by RW Johnson which is now ten years old but still one of the most perceptive accounts of Mugabe's rise to power, aided curiously enough, by a man called Ian Smith...it may be beyond your patience, but that's the price one pays for scholarship. The long and the short of it is that Mugabe suited the interests of people who were more concerned to end the war in Zimbabwe than what happened after it, as was the case in well -make up a list, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/19/robert-mugabe-election-this-year?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/robert-mugabe-88th-birthday-celebrations?INTCMP=SRCH

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/9094942/Robert-Mugabe-I-have-died-more-times-than-Jesus-Christ.html

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n04/rw-johnson/how-mugabe-came-to-power

[trish]

Its even been in FOX

http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/02/17/zimbabwe-central-bank-treasury-planning-banking-reforms/

G'night all, it's past my workday bed time.

[flabbybody]

russta, politically speaking, are your views considered mainstream in the land down under ?

[russtafa]

yeah pretty much if you look at the polls

[russtafa]

our government is rated the worst ever but you people will love their policies which are close to getting them lynched

[thx1138]

Just to note, the 1982 CIA sponsored rebellion failed. This one will fail too unless Putin caves in. And BTW: the so called free Syrian army has been getting its weapons from the US via Israel. This has been planned on for years. Remember the US info sources are very tightly censored. Don't believe everything to hear or read from them.

[Stavros]

Just to note, the 1982 CIA sponsored rebellion failed. This one will fail too unless Putin caves in. And BTW: the so called free Syrian army has been getting its weapons from the US via Israel. This has been planned on for years. Remember the US info sources are very tightly censored. Don't believe everything to hear or read from them.

Do you have a reference you can cite for your claim that the CIA sponsored the rebellion in Hama in 1982? We know that the rebellion was mounted by the military faction of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Tali'a as-Muqatila Lil-Mujahideen = Fighting Vanguard of Warriors) and that it was the climax of a move against the Brotherhood that had begun the year before and that 400 pro-Brotherhood officers in the Army were rounded up in January 1982. But we also know that the elderly leader of the Brotherhood, Isam al-Attar had been living in West Germany since 1964 (in Aachen). Is it possible that arms went from Germany via Turkey? The reports on the one hand claim the rebels were well-armed, yet intelligence doesn't seem to account for significant external support, so perhaps in the previous year sympathisers in the Syrian Army had gradually built up a stockpile in Hama which was a stronghold of the Brotherhood -there was a rebellion against French rule there in 1925-intriguing, but in the absence of any evidence, I don't think the role you claim is being played by the CIA/USA is as clear as you think it is.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/red-cross-syria-fails-evacuate-reporters-222632538.html




Red Cross in Syria fails to evacuate reporters

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kjmVjizroQE0M3Nlej7hqQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/ap/ap_logo_106.png (http://www.ap.org/)By BASSEM MROUE and BEN HUBBARD | Associated Press – 2 hrs 50 mins ago



BEIRUT (AP) — A Red Cross team evacuated 27 people from a besieged neighborhood in the Syrian city of Homs on Friday but apparently failed to get out two wounded Western journalists and the bodies of two others killed by government rockets.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said a local team entered the besieged neighborhood of Baba Amr, but spokesman Hicham Hassan said he wasn't sure if foreign journalists were among them.
An earlier statement said that seven people were taken to the privately owned al-Amin hospital, which is nearby. It was not immediately clear where the others were moved to.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry accused "armed groups" of refusing to hand over the journalists, and an opposition activist in the area said the journalists had refused to leave.
French journalist Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and British photographer Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times both asked for help leaving the embattled city after they were wounded in a government attack on a makeshift media center Wednesday. French photographer William Daniels, who was not injured, was also with the group, as was Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa.
American correspondent Marie Colvin, also of the Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the same attack.
The effort to evacuate the reporters and wounded Syrians is part of a wider international push to bring aid to people in the areas hardest hit by the regime's efforts to quash the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule.
But the inability of the Red Cross to navigate the tremendous hatred and distrust between Assad's regime and opposition activists seeking to overthrow it does not bode well for future international efforts to help those suffering the most in the country's 11-month-old political crisis.
At a high-level international conference Friday in Tunisia, American, European and Arab nations asked the United Nations to plan a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after Assad's regime halts its brutal crackdown. It also called on Assad to end the violence and allow humanitarian aid to reach embattled areas.
Workers from the local branch of the Red Cross entered one of those areas Friday, Baba Amr in Homs, to negotiate the evacuation of wounded civilians with Syrian authorities and opposition groups.
In a statement, the Syrian Foreign Ministry accused "armed groups" in Baba Amr of refusing to hand over a wounded female journalist and the dead bodies of two other journalists. Syrian authorities regularly blame the violence on radical Islamists and "armed gangs."
The Foreign Ministry said the government had sent several local "dignitaries" and ambulances from the Syrian Red Crescent to evacuate the journalists.
But after several hours of negotiations, the statement said, the groups "refused to hand over the wounded journalist and the two bodies, which endangers the life of the French journalist and blocks the return of the bodies to their countries."
A local activist, Abu Mohammed Ibrahim, reached on Skype, said the journalists had refused to leave because the ICRC did not enter, only the Syrian Red Crescent, which he said is full of "collaborators with the regime."
"The journalists also refused to give over the bodies," he said. "They don't know what the government is going to do with them."
He said the four journalists remained in the city, each staying in a different apartment, and that the two dead bodies are being kept in yet another apartment, where they have begun to decay.
Hassan, the spokesman for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said "as for Red Crescent's reputation, they are independent and their volunteers risk their lives on a daily basis." He said the ICRC has often accompanied the Red Crescent volunteers into the field.
Speaking at the Tunisia conference, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Syrian authorities had refused a request to tell the French Ambassador to Syria travel to Homs to arrange the evacuation.
"I appeal personally to the Syrian authorities that Madame Bouvier and the others receive the medical care they urgently need," he said.
One video posted on YouTube on Wednesday showed Bouvier lying on a hospital gurney with a white cast stretching from her left ankle to her thigh. Conroy is on a nearby bed, with white bandages around his left thigh and calf. The video says he was injured by shrapnel from the rocket attack.
In another video, posted Thursday, Bouvier is covered with a blanket and lying on a couch. She says her leg is broken in two places and that she needs an operation that local medics cannot perform.
"I need, as soon as possible, a cease-fire and a medically equipped car in good condition to drive us to Lebanon," she says.
Daniels stands at her side and pleads for their swift evacuation.
"It is difficult here. We don't have electricity. We don't have much to eat. The bombs continue to fall," he said, adding that they only have Internet access in a dangerous place on the neighborhood's edge.
A boom is heard outside as he speaks.
Conroy appears in a third video, also posted Thursday. Lying on couch, he says he has three large wounds in his leg.
"I am currently being looked after by the Free Syrian Army medical staff who are treating me with the best medical treatment available," he says, referring to armed opposition forces.
"It's important that I am here as a guest and not captured," he says. "I am absolutely OK."
The Syrian uprising, which began last March with protests in some of Syria's impoverished hinterlands, is evolving into one of the most violent of the Arab Spring. Assad's security forces have used extreme force against protesters, and the opposition is increasingly taking up arms.
The U.N. said last month that 5,400 people had been killed. Hundreds more have died since. Activists put the number at more than 7,300, but overall figures are impossible to confirm independently.
___
Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Geneva.http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/DlGhbIK7ZFu0oX6t7ti5ng--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNTk7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/90b8023172590a05080f6a70670021ef.jpg
This image from amateur video purports to show Edith Bouvier of Le
Figaro in a makeshift clinic in Homs, Syria, Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012.
Bouvier was wounded in shelling Wednesday in Homs. (AP Photo)

[Dino Velvet]

Syrian forces pound Homs, block aid convoy http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/03/us-syria-idUSTRE8220CI20120303


By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Mohammed Abbas (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=mohammed.abbas&)
BEIRUT | Sat Mar 3, 2012 6:49pm EST

(Reuters) - Syrian forces renewed their bombardment of parts of the shattered city of Homs on Saturday and for a second day blocked Red Cross aid meant for civilians stranded without food and fuel in the former rebel stronghold, activists and aid workers said.
The government assault came a day after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had received "grisly reports" that President Bashar al-Assad's troops were executing and torturing people in the city after rebels abandoned their positions there.
"In an act of pure revenge, Assad's army has been firing mortar rounds and ... machine guns since this morning at Jobar," said the Syrian Network for Human Rights, naming a district next to Baba Amro, where rebels held out against almost a month of siege and shelling before fleeing this week.
"We have no immediate reports of casualties because of the difficulty of communications," the campaign group said in a statement.
Syria's government says it is fighting foreign-backed "terrorists" whom it blames for killing hundreds of soldiers and police across the country.
The United Nations says Syrian security forces have killed more than 7,500 civilians since a revolt against Assad's rule began in March last year.
Concern was mounting for civilians in freezing conditions in Baba Amro, where International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) trucks were being held up by Assad's forces.
Anti-government activists said they feared troops wanted to prevent the ICRC witnessing a reported massacre of rebels in Baba Amro, which had become a symbol of the year-long uprising.
A Damascus-based ICRC spokesman said Syrian authorities had given the convoy permission to enter but government forces on the ground had stopped the trucks because of what they said were unsafe conditions, including "mines and booby traps."
"There has been fighting there for at least a month. The situation cannot be good. They will need food, it's cold, they will need blankets. And there are injured there that need to be evacuated immediately," Saleh Dabbakeh told Reuters.
Syrian state television broadcast interviews with unnamed civilians in what it said was the stricken district, against a backdrop of empty streets, some with heavy conflict damage.
"Anyone who went out on the street was kidnapped or slaughtered. We called for the army to come in. God bless the army, they saved us from the armed terrorist gangs," said one interviewee, referring to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels.
INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
The outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria (http://www.reuters.com/places/syria), where repression of initially peaceful protests against Assad's rule has spawned an armed insurrection by army deserters and others.
Russia and China (http://www.reuters.com/places/china) have twice vetoed council resolutions that would have condemned Damascus, accusing Western and Arab nations of pushing for Libya-style "regime change" in Syria.
China urged both Damascus and the rebels to end the violence immediately and start talks, but again said it opposed any foreign military intervention in Syria.
"We oppose anyone interfering in Syria's internal affairs under the pretext of 'humanitarian' issues," said a foreign ministry statement carried by Xinhua news agency early on Sunday Beijing time and monitored in London.
Former Syrian ally Turkey (http://www.reuters.com/places/turkey) said Assad was committing "war crimes" and condemned Syria for blocking aid to Baba Amro.
"The Syrian regime is committing a crime against humanity every day," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said his government was again seeking to have the U.N. Security Council tackle the Syrian crisis.
"This means working with other countries such as Russia (http://www.reuters.com/places/russia) and China that have blocked previous initiatives," he told Sky News.
The United States is drafting a legally binding council resolution that would call for aid workers to be allowed into besieged towns and an end to the violence, U.N. envoys said.
UNREST SPREADS
Syria's SANA news agency reported a suicide car bombing in the southern town of Deraa, but activists denied it was a suicide attack.
SANA said the Deraa bomber killed three people and wounded 20 others, while residents said seven people had been killed.
Elsewhere in Syria, anti-Assad activists reported mass arrests and the killing of six soldiers.
Campaigners said seven people had been killed in Syria's north, and three had been shot dead in east Syria's Deir al-Zor when troops opened fire on a funeral for two killed in a crackdown on democracy protests.
Senior rebel FSA officer Colonel Malik Kurdy said his fighters had seized an arms cache in a battle in countryside north of Damascus and killed and wounded about 100 Syrian troops, but added the report was preliminary.
Rights group Human Rights Watch distributed satellite images of Baba Amro that it said showed widespread destruction.
"The bombardment has severely restricted movement and relief efforts and deprived thousands of civilians of the ability to access the most basic commodities," it said in a statement.
Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said anti-Assad fighters had killed six soldiers and wounded nine in the town of al-Herak, south of Deraa.
He also said seven people had been killed in Syria's north in and around Idlib province, three by a roadside bomb and the others by gunfire from Syrian security services.
In the suburbs of Damascus, activists reported hundreds of arrests and said Syrian security forces had killed three people during raids in which they also set alight homes and cars.
Due to media restrictions, the activists' reports could not be independently verified.
In unusually tough remarks to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Ban explicitly blamed Damascus for the fate of civilians in the conflict.
"The brutal fighting has trapped civilians in their homes, without food, heat or electricity or medical care, without any chance of evacuating the wounded or burying the dead. People have been reduced to melting snow for drinking water," he said.
"This atrocious assault is all the more appalling for having been waged by the government itself, systematically attacking its own people."
Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, said Ban's comments included "extremely virulent rhetoric which confines itself to slandering a government based on reports, opinions or hearsay."
Western diplomats on Saturday received the bodies of American journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, who were killed on February 22 during shelling of Baba Amro.
The diplomats, believed to be the French ambassador to Syria and a representative from the Polish embassy, which is managing U.S. affairs in Syria, had taken the bodies from the Al-Assad University Hospital in Damascus.
(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=stephanienebehay&) in Geneva, Michelle Nichols (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=michelle.nichols&) in New York, Avril Ormsby (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=avril.ormsby&) in London; Writing and additional by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Mark Heinrich (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=mark.heinrich&) and Andrew Heavens (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=andrewheavens&))

[russtafa]

Syrian forces pound Homs, block aid convoy http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/03/us-syria-idUSTRE8220CI20120303they look like they are having fun:tongue:

[thx1138]

Assad: 1, Obama. Clinton, Netanyahu: 0
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=47719&cid=23&fromval=1&frid=23&seccatid=20&s1=1

[thx1138]

@ Stavros: Sent you a message. Re Homs: Doesn't look too different from what the US military did to Falluja.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/annan-ends-syria-trip-no-deal-143209371.html


Annan ends Syria trip with no deal

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kjmVjizroQE0M3Nlej7hqQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/ap/ap_logo_106.png (http://www.ap.org/)By ZEINA KARAM | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago


BEIRUT (AP) — International envoy and former U.N. chief Kofi Annan left Syria Sunday without a deal to end the bloody year-old conflict as regime forces mounted a new assault on rebel strongholds in the north.
Annan said he presented President Bashar Assad with concrete proposals "which will have a real impact on the ground."
"Once it's agreed, it will help launch the process and help end the crisis on the ground," he told reporters at the end of his two-day visit to Syria.
Annan, who also met with Syrian opposition leaders and businessmen in Damascus, said he was optimistic following two sets of talks with Assad, but acknowledged that resolving the crisis would be tough.
"It's going to be difficult but we have to have hope," he said.
The former U.N. chief called for reforms that would create "a solid foundation for a democratic Syria," but added: "You have to start by stopping the killing and the misery and the abuse that is going on today and then give time for a political settlement."
The ongoing bloodshed cast a pall over the U.N. efforts to end the country's yearlong conflict, with both the regime and the opposition refusing talks with the other.
In his discussions with Assad on Saturday, Annan made several proposals to end the political crisis and start a political dialogue. He was rebuffed by the president who rejected any immediate negotiations with the opposition, striking a further blow to already faltering international efforts for talks to end the conflict.
Assad told Annan that a political solution is impossible as long as "terrorist groups" threaten the country.
The opposition's political leadership has also rejected dialogue, saying talk is impossible after a crackdown that the U.N. estimates has killed more than 7,500 people. That makes it likely that the conflict will continue to edge toward civil war.
Annan left Syria later Sunday, headed for Qatar, a U.N. spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Syrian forces, meanwhile, kept up an offensive against rebel strongholds in the north of the country and shelled neighborhoods in the restive central city of Homs, as well as clashing with rebel fighters across the country.
Military units loyal to Assad appear to have been freed up after finally crushing lightly armed rebels in the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr last week, and are on the attack in Idlib province, across the border from key opposition supply bases in Turkey.
Troops on Saturday launched a long-anticipated assault to crush the opposition in Idlib province, bombarding its main city with tank shells from all sides and clashing with rebel fighters struggling to hold back an invasion.
Syrian forces had been building up for days around Idlib, the capital of a hilly, agricultural province along the Syria-Turkey border that has been a hotbed of protests against Assad's regime.
An AP photographer touring Turkish villages across the border from Idlib reported hearing constant artillery pounding. Turkish villagers said the artillery fire began just before dawn and that refugees were trickling in across the border into Turkey during lulls.
A Turkish official said the violence had led to a spike in Syrian civilians fleeing to Turkey. Some 1,000 have crossed the border in the past week as opposed to 1,000 in the previous month, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity under government protocol.
Turkey now hosts some 12,500 Syrians, part of the more than 100,000 refugees who have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, reported military arrests, raids in towns and villages across Syria as well as clashes with armed rebels.
In the north, three soldiers were killed in the village of al-Janoudieh near the Turkish border in clashes between troops and army defectors. A mother and her son were killed in the crossfire during another clash in the town of Ariha that also killed two soldiers. And four civilians were killed during an army raid of the village of al-Dabeet.
Others were killed in raids outside Damascus, the group said.
In Homs, several activists reported intense shelling of the Karm el-Zeytoun, Bab Dreib and Job al-Jandali districts with mortars and rocket propelled grenades and said several people were killed and wounded.
"There is very heavy destruction. Cars are burning and smoke is rising from the area," said Homs-based activist Abu Bakr Saleh.
"They are trying to punish all districts of Homs where anti-government protests still take place," he said.
Other activists said government forces shelled a bridge on a road to the Lebanese border often used by families fleeing violence. It was unclear if the bridge was destroyed.
The activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government rarely comments on specific incidents inside the country and bars most media from operating.
Many fear the offensive in Idlib could end up like the regime's campaign against the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs. Troops besieged and shelled Baba Amr for weeks before capturing it on March 1.
Activists say hundreds were killed, and a U.N. official who visited the area this week said she was "horrified" by the destruction in the district, now virtually deserted.
In the northwestern city of Aleppo, gunmen assassinated local boxing champion Gheyath Tayfour. State-run news agency SANA said an armed group ambushed the 34-year-old Tayfour in his car near Aleppo University square and opened fire, killing him instantly with five bullets to his head.
Syria has seen a string of mysterious assassinations lately targeting doctors, professors and businessman, as the uprising against Assad turns more militarized.
____
AP writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.

[Dino Velvet]

Assad is partially right. They do have terrorists in his country. Could we possibly get Al Qaeda vs Hezbollah on PPV?

http://news.yahoo.com/blasts-kill-dozens-syrian-capital-130211721.html

Blasts kill dozens in Syrian capital

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/kjmVjizroQE0M3Nlej7hqQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/ap/ap_logo_106.png (http://www.ap.org/)By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | Associated Press – 7 hrs ago


BEIRUT (AP) — Twin car bombs struck intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital on Saturday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 100, according to state media.
State TV, citing the health minister, said the death toll could rise. Gruesome images of the scene were aired, with mangled and charred corpses, bloodstained streets and twisted steel.
"All our windows and doors are blown out," said Majed Seibiyah, 29, who lives in the area. "I was sleeping when I heard a sound like an earthquake. I didn't grasp what was happening until I hear screaming in the street."
The blasts were the latest in a string of mysterious, large-scale attacks targeting the Syrian regime's military and security installations. The previous blasts, all suicide bombings, killed dozens of people since December, even as the regime wages a bloody crackdown against the year-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.
The government has blamed the explosions on the "terrorists" that it claims are behind the revolt. The opposition has denied any role, saying they believe forces loyal to the government are behind the bombings to tarnish the uprising.
But top U.S. intelligence officials also have pointed to al-Qaida in Iraq as the likely culprit behind the previous bombings, raising the possibility its fighters are infiltrating across the border to take advantage of the turmoil.
Al-Qaida's leader called for Assad's ouster in February.
A suspected al-Qaida presence creates new obstacles for the U.S., its Western allies and Arab states trying to figure out a way to help push Assad from power, and may also rally Syrian religious minorities, fearful of Sunni radicalism, to get behind the regime.
Bassma Kodmani, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said she doubted armed groups trying to bring Assad down by force, such as the rebel Free Syrian Army, have the capacity to carry out such attacks on security institutions in the capital.
"I don't think any of the opposition forces or the free Syrian army has the capacity to do such an operation to target these buildings because they are fortresses," she said by telephone. "They are very well guarded. There is no way anyone can penetrate them without having strong support and complicity from inside the security apparatus."
According to SANA, preliminary information indicated two blasts were caused by car bombs that hit the aviation intelligence department and the criminal security department at 7:30 a.m local time. Shooting broke out soon after the blast and sent residents and others who had gathered in the area fleeing, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.
A Syrian official also said there were reports of a third blast Saturday targeting a military bus at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, but there were no details. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Syrian government denies there is a popular will behind the uprising, saying foreign extremists and gangs are trying to destroy the country. But his opponents deny that and say an increasingly active rebel force has been driven to take up arms because the government used tanks, snipers and machine guns to crush peaceful protests.
The U.N. estimates that more that 8,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began last March.
The last major suicide bombing in Syria happened on Feb. 10, when twin blasts struck security compounds in the government stronghold of Aleppo in northern Syria, killing 28 people. Damascus, another Assad stronghold, has seen three suicide previous bombings since December.
In recent weeks, Syrian forces have waged a series of heavy offensives against the main strongholds of the opposition — Homs in central Syria, Idlib in the north and Daraa in the south.
The bloodshed fuels the country's sectarian tensions. The military's top leadership is stacked heavily with members of the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad and the ruling elite belong.
Sunnis are the majority in the country of 22 million and make up the backbone of the opposition.
Diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis have so far brought no result. But U.N. envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council in a briefing Friday that he would return to Damascus even though his recent talks with Assad saw no progress in attempts to cobble together peace negotiations between the two sides.
After the confidential briefing via videolink, Annan told reporters in Geneva that he urged the council "to speak with one voice as we try to resolve the crisis in Syria." Russia and China have blocked U.N. action against Assad's regime.
"The first objective is for all of us to end the violence and human rights abuses and the killings and get unimpeded access for humanitarian access to the needy, and of course the all-important issue of political process that will lead to a democratic Syria," Annan said.
Both Assad and much of the opposition spurned Annan's appeal for talks.
___
Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this story from Damascus, Syria.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/secretary-clinton-says-syrian-president-assad-must-163814047.html


And in response to reports of the growing reach of al Qaeda in Syria, Clinton said: "The vast majority of the people who are standing up against the horrific assaults of the military machine in Syria are ordinary citizens defending themselves and their homes."

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/top-military-officers-targeted-syrian-conflict-194617171.html

Top military officers targeted in Syrian conflict

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By BASSEM MROUE | Associated Press – 21 mins ago


BEIRUT (AP) — The gunmen walked into an apartment building before dawn earlier this month in the quiet Damascus suburb of Jaramana, went to the fifth floor and knocked on the door. When the police commander opened up, the men shot him dead and left.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's opponents appear to be resorting increasingly to assassinations of loyalist military officers in an escalation of their campaign to bring down the regime. At least 10 senior officers, including several generals, have been gunned down in the past three months, many of them as they left their homes in the morning to head to their posts.
The latest occurred Tuesday, when attackers shot and killed a retired lieutenant colonel and his brother, a chief warrant officer, at a home supplies store in another suburb of the capital, according to the state news agency. Elsewhere in Damascus, an intelligence officer was killed, opposition activists said.
Such targeted slayings are rising as an intensified crackdown by regime forces in recent months has dealt heavy setbacks to Syria's rebels. For the moment, Assad's troops have shattered the rebels' strategy of trying to seize ground in several cities and provinces.
Their pace appears to have accelerated even more sharply since a cease-fire plan brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan went into effect April 12 — and just as quickly began to unravel.
The peace plan was meant to halt 13 months of violence by government forces to put down an anti-Assad uprising in which the U.N. says more than 9,000 people have died. A spokesman for Annan said in Geneva that satellite imagery and other credible reports show Syria has failed to withdraw all its heavy weapons from populated areas as required by the cease-fire deal.
It remains murky whether the recent slayings are being carried out by rogue elements in the opposition seeking revenge or whether they represent a coordinated strategy by rebels to destabilize the regime. A spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, the Turkish-based umbrella group for armed opposition groups in Syria, denied it was behind the string of attacks, although he said the victims were legitimate targets.
There is also a sectarian tone to the killings. Almost all the slain officers come from the religious minorities that have been the most die-hard supporters of Assad in the face of the Sunni Muslim-led uprising against his rule. Such minorities — particularly Alawites, followers of a Shiite offshoot sect — make up the backbone of the military's officer ranks.
Mohamad Bazzi, a Syria expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the killings are "likely a tactic by the Syrian rebels who are fighting from a much weaker position."
"In many ways, it's a classic guerrilla tactic — to strike at weak points in the regime's military and security apparatus," he said.
Some such targeted killings did take place last year as the uprising against Assad became increasingly militarized. But the pace appears to have sped up in recent months.
One of the first major attacks occurred Feb. 11, when gunmen opened fire at Brig. Gen. Issa al-Khouli early in the morning as he left his home in the Damascus neighborhood of Rukn-Eddine. Al-Khouli was a doctor and the chief of the Hameish military hospital in the capital.
On April 11, gunmen shot and killed army Brig. Gen. Jamal Khaled in the Damascus suburb of Aqraba as he drove to work, the Syrian state-run news agency SANA said. His driver, a soldier, was also killed.
The slaying of the police commander in Jaramana came on April 12. Jaramana, on the capital's southeast outskirts, is predominantly Christian — a community that, like Alawites, has stuck strongly by Assad, in large part because of fears of Sunni domination if he falls. The gunmen knocked on the door of police Brig. Gen. Walid Jouni, gunned him down and then escaped unscathed, according to SANA.
At least five more officers have been assassinated since, including the three Tuesday.
Faiz Amru, a rebel general in the Free Syrian Army, insisted those who were killed were involved in the crackdown on the opposition in the past year. Aside from assaults battering pro-opposition residential areas with tank fire and heavy machine guns, regime forces have also directly targeted dissidents, with activists taken from their homes and later found dead.
"Under any law, the killer should be killed," he said. "These officers have direct orders to kill people and destroy homes."
Amru said the FSA is not directly involved and that the assassins were individuals seeking revenge for abuses by the regime.
However, it is not clear whether all those assassinated directly participated in the crackdown. The motive in the hospital chief slaying, for example, is unknown; one slain officer was part of the air defense forces, which is not known to be participating in attacks on opposition areas.
That could suggest the assassinations aim to intimidate anyone in the military — or the attackers are selecting easier targets of opportunity.
One activist said those killed appeared not to be the most prominent commanders of the assaults. "It is very difficult to assassinate intelligence officers who are taking a major part in the crackdown because they move amid tight security," he said. "Such officers don't drive or walk alone in the streets."
Another activist, based in the city of Homs, said he believed the main motive was revenge against the loyalist religious minorities.
Both activists spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The Syrian government consistently blames "terror groups" for the killings, just as it blames the country's turmoil in general on terrorists, denying there is a popular-based uprising. The regime says more than 2,000 members of the military and security forces have been killed in the past year, almost all of them in rebel attacks on checkpoints or convoys, or in gunbattles.
The last time Syria saw any such major string of assassinations was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the Muslim Brotherhood waged a campaign of violence against Assad's predecessor and father, Hafez Assad. One of the most notorious attacks came on June 16, 1979, when gunmen killed dozens of cadets at Aleppo Artillery School in northern Syria. The dead were mostly Alawites, the sect to which the Assad family belongs.
Hafez Assad eventually responded with a three-week siege of the main Brotherhood stronghold, the city of Hama, that leveled parts of the city. Amnesty International has estimated that 10,000 to 25,000 were killed in the Hama assault, and the Brotherhood was all but wiped out of the country.
An official with the main political umbrella group for the opposition, the Syrian National Council, said he didn't believe that anyone in that organization or the Free Syrian Army was involved in the latest killings. Instead, he suggested, it reflects a growing extremism among rogue enemies of Assad.
"The longer it takes for an international intervention to contain the crisis, Syria is going to the unknown," Sameer Nashar said. "Many local, regional and international forces will enter Syria and will find a good atmosphere for extremist cases."
___
Bassem Mroue can be reached on twitter at http://twitter.com/bmroue

[jimbo1974]

Im sure this has been said (i cant be arsed to read all the thread), but there is one way to solve Syria :

Get Russia to stop fucking about

[Dino Velvet]

Im sure this has been said (i cant be arsed to read all the thread), but there is one way to solve Syria :

Get Russia to stop fucking about

Deal with Vlad then.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g7-75H8jXzg/R8M1Gwls9dI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/XQys7wgbreA/s400/czar+putin.jpg

[irvin66]

I have a solution to the problem of Syria. Nuke them back to the Stone Age! muhahahahahaha .....







:joke:

[Stavros]

You just said this about Afghanistan -I thought you were being sarcastic, but now I am not so sure. Give it some thought for a few moments, then I think you will need another cup of tea.

[Prospero]

Well Irvin - that seems to be your solution with all our contemporary political problems. Very enlightened. Perhaps the solution with Breivik is to nuke him too? Oh whoops. Too much collateral damage. Or are you perhaps simply a lame prankster?

[irvin66]

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

[Dino Velvet]

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

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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo)

http://www.utropia.no/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/33_Andrei-Chikatilo-AP.jpg

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bombers-strike-syrian-capital-killing-55-120556724.html

Suicide bombers strike Syrian capital, killing 55

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)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/After%20the%20Arab%20Spring_Syria%E2%80%99s%20bloo dy%20Arab%20Spring%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/After%20the%20Arab%20Spring_Syria%E2%80%99s%20bloo dy%20Arab%20Spring%28lsero%29.pdf

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

[Dino Velvet]

Violence spills over into Lebanon. http://news.yahoo.com/seven-killed-syria-linked-clashes-lebanon-162518337.html

Nine killed in Syria-linked clashes in Lebanon

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FZN6924R0WZ__x92.x6.GA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/reuters/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/)By Nazih Siddiq | Reuters – 1 hr 20 mins ago


TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - Clashes erupted between supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli on Saturday, killing nine people and wounding 42, residents and a doctor said.
A Reuters journalist said the two sides fired machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other and that the army moved into the area with armored vehicles in an attempt to quell the violence but did not open fire.
Gunmen from the Jabal Mohsen district, home to the minority Alawite sect - the same offshoot of Shi'ite Islam to which Assad belongs - have fought on-off skirmishes over the past few weeks with the Sunni Muslim residents of the Bab al-Tabbaneh area.
Saturday's death toll is the highest in a single day in Tripoli, raising fears that Syria's unrest could spill over into its smaller neighbor.
Lebanon's National News Agency said there was "shelling across both areas heard every five minutes, and snipers targeting civilians".
Residents said those killed included civilians caught in the crossfire and that a Lebanese soldier was among the wounded.
The neighborhoods have long-standing grievances separate from the Syrian conflict but the Sunni-led uprising has led to strife among Lebanon's divided population, especially in majority Sunni Tripoli, 70 km (43 miles) north of Beirut.
International peace envoy Kofi Annan said on Saturday that Syria was slipping into all-out war and that the entire region would suffer if the international community did not step up pressure on Assad.
"Let me appeal to all of you to engage earnestly and seriously with all other stakeholders, mindful that if regional and international divisions play out in Syria, the Syrian people and the region - your region - will pay the price," Annan told a meeting of Arab League member countries.
(Additional reporting by Regan Doherty in Doha; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Pravin Char)

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/un-team-sees-massacre-syrian-village-210405702.html

UN team sees massacre site in Syrian village

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By DIAA HADID and ZEINA KARAM | Associated Press – 2 hrs 36 mins ago


BEIRUT (AP) — U.N. observers could smell the stench of burned corpses Friday and saw body parts scattered around a Syrian farming hamlet that was the site of a massacre this week in which nearly 80 men, women and children were reported slain. The scene held evidence of a "horrific crime," a U.N. spokeswoman said.
The observers were finally able to get inside the deserted village of Mazraat al-Qubair after being blocked by government troops and residents, and coming under small arms fire Thursday, a day after the slayings were first reported.
In central Damascus, rebels brazenly battled government security forces in the heart of the capital Friday for the first time, witnesses said, and explosions echoed for hours. Government artillery repeatedly pounded the central city of Homs and troops tried to storm it from three sides.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with international envoy Kofi Annan in Washington to discuss how to salvage his faltering plan to end 15 months of bloodshed in Syria. Western nations blame President Bashar Assad for the violent crackdown on anti-government protests that grew out of the Arab Spring.
The U.N. team was the first independent group to arrive in Mazraat al-Qubair, a village of about 160 people in central Hama province. Opposition activists and Syrian government officials blamed each other for the killings and differed about the number of dead.
Activists said that up to 78 people, including women and children, were shot, hacked and burned to death, saying pro-government militiamen known as "shabiha" were responsible. A government statement on the state-run news agency SANA said "an armed terrorist group" killed nine women and children before Hama authorities were called and killed the attackers.
Sausan Ghosheh, spokeswoman for the U.N. observers, said residents' accounts of the mass killing were "conflicting," and that they needed to cross check the names of the missing and dead with those supplied by nearby villagers. Mazraat al-Qubair itself was "empty of the local inhabitants," she said.
"You can smell the burnt smell of the dead bodies," Ghosheh said. "You could also see body parts in and around the village."
The U.N. supervision mission released a statement later Friday saying that armored vehicle tracks were visible in the area and some homes had been damaged by rockets and grenades. Inside some of the houses, blood was visible across the walls and the floors, the statement said.
Ghosheh said she saw two homes damaged by shells and bullets. She spoke of burned bodies found in a house, but did not elaborate and was not clear whether the U.N. team saw them.
She told the BBC: "We can say that there was definitely a horrific crime that was committed. The scale is still not clear to me."
A BBC correspondent traveling with the U.N. observers described the hamlet as an "appalling scene" of burned-out houses and gore.
"There are pieces of human flesh lying around the room, there is a big pile of congealed blood in the corner, there's a tablecloth that still has the pieces of someone's brain attached to the side of it," said the correspondent, Paul Danahar.
"They killed the people, they killed the livestock, they left nothing in the village alive," he added.
The U.N. observers also visited a cemetery where some of the dead were buried, according to an activist in Mazraat al-Qubair.
Activists said the Sunni hamlet is surrounded by Alawite villages. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and Assad is a member of the sect, while the opposition is dominated by Sunnis.
The United States condemned Assad over the killings, saying he has "doubled down on his brutality and duplicity."
The violence followed another mass killing last month in a string of villages known as Houla, where 100 people including many women and children were also shot and stabbed to death. The opposition and the regime blamed each other for the Houla massacre.
In April, the U.N. said more than 9,000 people have been killed since the crisis began in March 2011, but it has been unable to update its estimate since and the daily bloodshed has continued in past weeks. Activists put the number of dead at about 13,000.
Before her meeting with Annan, Clinton said they would look at "how to engender greater response by the government of Syria to the six-point plan that he has put forth."
Annan's plan calls for an end to violence followed by a political transition. Although Assad agreed to it, the violence has continued unabated with reports of brutal massacres against innocents.
Annan allowed that some people "say the plan is definitely dead." He asked rhetorically whether the problem is the plan or its implementation.
"If it's implementation, how do we get action on that? And if it's the plan, what other options do we have?" he said.
U.N. diplomats say Annan is proposing that world powers and key regional players, including Iran, come up with a new strategy to end the conflict.
In Damascus, government troops clashed with defectors from the Free Syrian Army in the Kfar Souseh district in some of the worst fighting yet in the capital. The clashes were a clear sign that the ragtag rebel group has succeeded in taking its fight into the regime's base of power.
"I've been hearing shooting and explosions for hours now and can see smoke rising from the area," a witness who spoke on condition of anonymity for security concerns told The Associated Press.
On Thursday night, armed rebels took part in a large anti-government rally in the same district, witnesses said, in a rare and bold public appearance by the fighters in the capital. Friday's fighting began when the rebels attacked a government checkpoint in the morning, according to Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"The men are shouting 'God is great,' women are crying," said Omar, a Damascus resident who would not provide his family name for fear of reprisal by Syrian officials. The sound of machine gun fire and blasts could be heard in the background as he spoke by Skype.
A resident of the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun said the battles began in his area after Syrian forces opened fire on an evening demonstration, killing a young man he identified as Mahmoud Said. Following that, gunmen hiding in the area began clashing with security forces. Nobody was sure how many people were killed, because they could not leave their houses, said the resident, who asked not to be identified because he feared government reprisal.
The Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said clashes also broke out in other Damascus districts. There was no immediate word on civilian casualties but the LCC said three rebels were killed.
In Homs, one of the main battlegrounds of the uprising, the offensive against Khaldiyeh appeared to be a new push by regime forces to retake the enclave that has been held by rebels for months.
Pro-Assad troops overran the opposition-held neighborhood of Baba Amr on March 1 after a government siege killed hundreds of people — many of them civilians — in Syria's third-largest city.
Activist Tarek Badrakhan said regime troops were trying to advance on Khaldiyeh from three sides, battling with rebels trying to stop them.
"This is the worst shelling we've had since the start of the revolution," he said via Skype. A shell could be heard exploding in the background as he spoke.
Shells were hitting the neighborhood at a rate of five to 10 a minute, said a statement by the Observatory.
There was no immediate word on casualties from Khaldiyeh, whose original 80,000 inhabitants have mostly fled.
Amateur videos showed missiles exploding into balls of flames in the crowded concrete jumble of homes, with thundering crashes that sent up plumes of heavy gray smoke. The videos suggested the attack began at dawn as birds chirped and roosters crowed. In one video, the missiles came in rapid succession, four exploding in less than a minute.
Homs has been one of the hardest-hit regions in Syria since the uprising began.
The government news agency reported troops on the eastern Lebanese border area clashed with rebels, who they said were trying to smuggle in three pick-up trucks full of weapons. The agency said they destroyed one car, but two sped back into Lebanon
In several locations across Syria on Friday, troops fired tear gas and live ammunition in an attempt to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters, activists said, including the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, the southern region of Daraa and in the suburbs of Damascus. Several people were reported killed, but the numbers were not immediately clear.
In Geneva, International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Hicham Hassan said Syria's humanitarian situation was worsening. And Kristalina Georgieva, European commissioner for humanitarian aid, said in Brussels that there are 1 million "vulnerable people who need humanitarian assistance."
"Between 200,000 and 400,000 are internally displaced ... and we have 95,000 refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan primarily," she said.
Also on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said five citizen journalists documenting the unrest in Syria were killed in a two-day period at the end of May.
___
AP writers Frank Jordans in Geneva, Matthew Lee in Washington and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

[Prospero]

I wonder if we are tipping towards a new Sunni-Shi'ite conflict which could become a regional war.

[Stavros]

This is a difficult one to call. You could argue that Saudi Arabia has been 'in conflict' with Iran since 1979, in part because its own Shi'a population has never been satisfied with its status in the kingdom and has, on occasion rioted to prove the point; and also because Saudi Arabia as custodian of the Holy Places fears any political movement that challenges its authority: the Shi'a may not be numerically larger, but they live in Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and obviously Iraq, which gives your theme some credence. The un-resolved issues of Syrian interference in Lebanon don't help that state maintain its delicate balance, but the argument must be -who would be fighting whom, and what for? Iraq at the moment is effectively two states with Iraqi Kurdistan signing oil contracts (with Exxon) which may yet become a flashpoint in Iraq; there is no outcome in sight to Syria which means nobody knows if Asad, his brother, or some military clique is going to hold on to power for another 10 years; and all of it would get much worse -in my opinion- if there was an escalation of the violence, be it sponsored by Iran on one side, or Saudi Arabia and Qatar (on behalf of -? USA?) on the other side.

Or, is this in fact the 'last Hurrah' for the Shi'a moment anyway? Elections in Iran next year will be interesting to watch...

[Dino Velvet]

I wonder if we are tipping towards a new Sunni-Shi'ite conflict which could become a regional war.


This is a difficult one to call. You could argue that Saudi Arabia has been 'in conflict' with Iran since 1979, in part because its own Shi'a population has never been satisfied with its status in the kingdom and has, on occasion rioted to prove the point; and also because Saudi Arabia as custodian of the Holy Places fears any political movement that challenges its authority: the Shi'a may not be numerically larger, but they live in Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and obviously Iraq, which gives your theme some credence. The un-resolved issues of Syrian interference in Lebanon don't help that state maintain its delicate balance, but the argument must be -who would be fighting whom, and what for? Iraq at the moment is effectively two states with Iraqi Kurdistan signing oil contracts (with Exxon) which may yet become a flashpoint in Iraq; there is no outcome in sight to Syria which means nobody knows if Asad, his brother, or some military clique is going to hold on to power for another 10 years; and all of it would get much worse -in my opinion- if there was an escalation of the violence, be it sponsored by Iran on one side, or Saudi Arabia and Qatar (on behalf of -? USA?) on the other side.

Or, is this in fact the 'last Hurrah' for the Shi'a moment anyway? Elections in Iran next year will be interesting to watch...

Thanks fellas. Regional War, huh?

[sensuelle]

I think at the moment the only solution that could stop the violance in Syria is if some people from within the regime say enough is enough and get rid of Assad, and then proces toward elections etc.I personally dont see that happing soon as there are many factors involved(mostly religion and the different ethnic communities within Syria) and also the problem is that the opposition is not really one front with a clear leader.So i think we will just have to wait until Assad overplays his own hand before anything will happen i guess.

[Stavros]

You are right, sensuelle, but even if Asad and his brother were to go, would the remaining elites be willing to introduce a democratic transition to a system which might divest them of their assets? This is the problem in Egypt, but if it stopped the violence such a move would at least be a credible alternative, even if it meant a return to the divided politics of the 1940s and 1950s -although that in itself doesn't prevent democracy from taking root. France in the 1950s used to have a new government every 6 months because it was so unstable. If Saudi Arabia is seen as the 'dark knight' in the region it is because its founder, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud wanted to replace the Ottoman and then the British and French empires as 'Caliph' in all of the Arab lands the Ottomans lost in 1918, indeed he tried to annexe TransJordan twice before giving up but I am not sure if politically the ambition ever died. It may be today that SA is paranoid about democracy because it would mean this hugely successful family firm would have to, as it were, go public. I don't believe a single US President has ever called for democratic government in Saudi Arabia.

[Dino Velvet]

I don't believe a single US President has ever called for democratic government in Saudi Arabia.

I'm not sure but you might be right about that. A few Congressman might have whined a little but that was probably just for the TV. Arab Spring not coming soon there, I bet.

Do you think the powers that be in Syria have a contingency plan just in case something happens with Bashar? He seems like the type of guy who might look for the exit sign but he might be pretty well dug in with less good options for him every day. Mubarak's future doesn't look very bright and Moammar didn't have one. I can't see how Iran would allow losing their influence their either.

Do you think Kofi Annan will make much of a difference?

[maddygirl]

Maybe I'm in the minority but I think we the U.S should just stay out of it... it's sad what's happening but we can't be policing the world, it's not our job.. its caused us enough trouble as it is.

[Stavros]

I'm not sure but you might be right about that. A few Congressman might have whined a little but that was probably just for the TV. Arab Spring not coming soon there, I bet.

Do you think the powers that be in Syria have a contingency plan just in case something happens with Bashar? He seems like the type of guy who might look for the exit sign but he might be pretty well dug in with less good options for him every day. Mubarak's future doesn't look very bright and Moammar didn't have one. I can't see how Iran would allow losing their influence their either.

Do you think Kofi Annan will make much of a difference?

I am not sure but I think part of the Asad family's problem is that they don't have many friends, Asad studied in London and his wife Asma was born in the UK to a Syrian family but after what has happened in the past year I doubt he could come here -which reinforces the siege mentality that this regime is in. Moreover, the elevation of the Alawite sect under his father, and the role that they -allegedly- play in the Shabiha militia suggests that the Alawite have made their own future precarious; in effect they could end up being the marginalised minority they were before the Asad family's ascendance.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday said that Asad is not essential to a solution but that the Syrians must decide:

"If the Syrians agree [on Assad's departure] between each other, we will only be happy to support such a solution," Lavrov said. "But … it is unacceptable to impose the conditions for such a dialogue from outside."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/10/russia-syria-president-assad-lavrov

[Prospero]

BBC Reported that Asad family have already been sending vast amounts of capital out of the country and that offers of a home in Russia have been made should they "choose" to leave.

[Stavros]

Spasiba, Prospero, I hadn't heard that. Can get cold in Syria in the winter, but it doesn't compare to winter in Siberia...guess the ony beach holiday they are going to get will be in Azerbaijan...but let's face it, he can not have been ignorant of what his father had done in Syria, he had the option of refusal when he was asked to go front of house, he has been a major flop and into the bargain has compromised his own and his family's safety. Had he taken greater interest in politics he might have done the right thing.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-russia-sending-syria-attack-helicopters-170359102.html

US: Russia sending Syria attack helicopters

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By BRADLEY KLAPPER | Associated Press – 33 mins ago


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and warned that the Arab country's 15-month conflict could become even deadlier.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. was "concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria."
She said the shipment "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically."
Clinton's comments at a public appearance with Israeli President Shimon Peres augured poorly for a peaceful solution to Syria's conflict. Officials from around the world are warning that the violence risks becoming an all-out civil war, with Middle East power brokers from Iran to Turkey possibly being drawn into the fighting.
Diplomatic hopes have rested on Washington and Moscow agreeing on a transition plan that would end the 40-year Assad regime.
But Moscow has consistently rejected the use of outside forces to end the conflict or any international plan to force regime change in Damascus. Despite withering criticism from the West, it insists that any arms it supplies to Syria are not being used to quell anti-government dissent.
With diplomacy at a standstill, the reported shipment of helicopters suggests a dangerous new turn for Syria after more than a year of harsh government crackdowns on mainly peaceful protests and the emergence of an increasingly organized armed insurgency.
There was no immediate reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Russia and Syria have a longstanding military relationship and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea. But in light of the brutal violence, the U.S. has repeatedly demanded that any further deliveries of weaponry be halted. Russian military support in the form of materiel as advanced as attack helicopters would deal a serious blow to efforts to starve the Syrian army of supplies.
Some 13,000 people have died, according to opposition groups, but the U.S. and its allies have been hoping that sanctions on Assad's government and its increased isolation would make it increasingly difficult to carry out military campaigns.
Asked why the Pentagon isn't blocking Russian weapons shipments to Syria, Defense Department officials noted that the administration hasn't declared an arms embargo. Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, accepted the argument that Moscow's resupplying of helicopters enables the regime to kill its own people, but said the key issue is how the Syrians use the materiel.
"Let's not let the Assad regime off the hook here," he told reporters. "The focus really needs to be more on what the Assad regime is doing to its own people, than the cabinets and the closets to which they turn to pull stuff out. It's really about what they're doing with what they've got in their hands."
In recent days, the State Department has decried what it calls "horrific new tactics" by Syrian forces, including helicopters attacks on civilians.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Clinton's comments referred specifically to new helicopters that were being sent to Syria, and not already existing Russian-made or Soviet-made supplies being used by Assad's government.
"We have been pushing the Russians for months to break their military ties with the Syrian regime and they haven't done it," she told reporters in Washington. "Instead, they keep reassuring all of us that what they are sending militarily to Syria can't be used against civilians.
"But what are we seeing?" Nuland asked. "We are seeing the Syrian government using helicopters to fire on their own people from the air. So our question remains: How can the Russians conscience their continued military sales to Syria?"
Clinton, as well, warned about a massing of Syrian forces near Aleppo over the last two days, saying such a deployment could be a "red line" for Syria's northern neighbor Turkey "in terms of their strategic and national interests."
"We are watching this very carefully," she said.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and James Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.


http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/_ViZxVerdp8iVASDamP_kA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MTA2Mjtjcj0xO2N3PTE4OTk7ZHg9MD tkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTM1MztxPTg1O3c9NjMw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/b8ac175d68623f10120f6a70670033c4.jpg

[Ben]

DANGEROUS GAMES IN SYRIA (http://ericmargolis.com/2012/06/dangerous-games-in-syria/):

http://ericmargolis.com/2012/06/dangerous-games-in-syria/

[Ben]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-russia-sending-syria-attack-helicopters-170359102.html

US: Russia sending Syria attack helicopters

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By BRADLEY KLAPPER | Associated Press – 33 mins ago


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration said Tuesday that Russia is sending attack helicopters to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and warned that the Arab country's 15-month conflict could become even deadlier.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. was "concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria."
She said the shipment "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically."
Clinton's comments at a public appearance with Israeli President Shimon Peres augured poorly for a peaceful solution to Syria's conflict. Officials from around the world are warning that the violence risks becoming an all-out civil war, with Middle East power brokers from Iran to Turkey possibly being drawn into the fighting.
Diplomatic hopes have rested on Washington and Moscow agreeing on a transition plan that would end the 40-year Assad regime.
But Moscow has consistently rejected the use of outside forces to end the conflict or any international plan to force regime change in Damascus. Despite withering criticism from the West, it insists that any arms it supplies to Syria are not being used to quell anti-government dissent.
With diplomacy at a standstill, the reported shipment of helicopters suggests a dangerous new turn for Syria after more than a year of harsh government crackdowns on mainly peaceful protests and the emergence of an increasingly organized armed insurgency.
There was no immediate reaction from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Russia and Syria have a longstanding military relationship and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base on the Mediterranean Sea. But in light of the brutal violence, the U.S. has repeatedly demanded that any further deliveries of weaponry be halted. Russian military support in the form of materiel as advanced as attack helicopters would deal a serious blow to efforts to starve the Syrian army of supplies.
Some 13,000 people have died, according to opposition groups, but the U.S. and its allies have been hoping that sanctions on Assad's government and its increased isolation would make it increasingly difficult to carry out military campaigns.
Asked why the Pentagon isn't blocking Russian weapons shipments to Syria, Defense Department officials noted that the administration hasn't declared an arms embargo. Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, accepted the argument that Moscow's resupplying of helicopters enables the regime to kill its own people, but said the key issue is how the Syrians use the materiel.
"Let's not let the Assad regime off the hook here," he told reporters. "The focus really needs to be more on what the Assad regime is doing to its own people, than the cabinets and the closets to which they turn to pull stuff out. It's really about what they're doing with what they've got in their hands."
In recent days, the State Department has decried what it calls "horrific new tactics" by Syrian forces, including helicopters attacks on civilians.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Clinton's comments referred specifically to new helicopters that were being sent to Syria, and not already existing Russian-made or Soviet-made supplies being used by Assad's government.
"We have been pushing the Russians for months to break their military ties with the Syrian regime and they haven't done it," she told reporters in Washington. "Instead, they keep reassuring all of us that what they are sending militarily to Syria can't be used against civilians.
"But what are we seeing?" Nuland asked. "We are seeing the Syrian government using helicopters to fire on their own people from the air. So our question remains: How can the Russians conscience their continued military sales to Syria?"
Clinton, as well, warned about a massing of Syrian forces near Aleppo over the last two days, saying such a deployment could be a "red line" for Syria's northern neighbor Turkey "in terms of their strategic and national interests."
"We are watching this very carefully," she said.
___
Associated Press writer Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and James Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.


http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/_ViZxVerdp8iVASDamP_kA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MTA2Mjtjcj0xO2N3PTE4OTk7ZHg9MD tkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTM1MztxPTg1O3c9NjMw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/b8ac175d68623f10120f6a70670033c4.jpg

Most States jump on board when selling weapons.
When there's a profit to be made, well, making money trumps human rights. It's the way of the world:

US Weapons Sold To Human Rights Violators/Undemocratic Nations:

http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2009/09/09/us-weapons-sold-human-rights-violatorsundemocratic-nations

Canadian Military Sales to Israel:


Canadian Military Sales to Israel - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrEkVHQlD88)

[Dino Velvet]

With the death of Assad's brother-in-law and the others, what next?

http://news.yahoo.com/first-word-syrias-assad-emerges-attack-151529740.html?_esi=1

First word from Syria's Assad emerges after attack

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By BEN HUBBARD | Associated Press – 10 mins ago


BEIRUT (AP) — Bashar Assad attended the swearing-in of his new defense minister Thursday, Syrian state TV said, the first word of the president since an audacious rebel attack the day before struck at the heart of his regime and killed three senior officials.
Government forces struck back against rebels with attack helicopters and shelling in a fifth straight day of clashes in Damascus. The inability of the military to control the clashes in the capital against lightly armed rebel forces and the deadly bombing of a high-level security meeting a day earlier made Assad's hold on power look increasingly tenuous.
The whereabouts of Assad, his wife and their three young children have been a mystery since the attack that killed his brother-in-law and his defense minister. Assad does not appear in public frequently, and his absence was notable following such a serious blow his inner circle.
The state TV announcement appeared aimed at sending the message that Assad is alive, well and still firmly in charge. It said Assad wished the new defense minister good luck but it did not say where the swearing-in took place. Nor did it show any photos or video of the ceremony, as it usually would.
Thousands of Syrians streamed across the Syrian border into Lebanon, fleeing as fighting in the capital entered its fifth straight day, witnesses said. Residents near the Masnaa crossing point — about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Damascus — said hundreds of private cars as well as taxis and buses were ferrying people across.
Wednesday's rebel bomb attack struck the harshest blow yet to Assad's regime. The White House said it showed Assad was "losing control" of Syria.
Syrian TV confirmed the deaths of Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general and the most senior government official to be killed in the rebels' battle to oust Assad; Gen. Assef Shawkat, 62, the deputy defense minister who is married to Assad's elder sister, Bushra, and is one of the most feared figures in the inner circle; and Hassan Turkmani, 77, a former defense minister who died of his wounds in the hospital.
Also wounded were Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar and Maj. Gen. Hisham Ikhtiar, who heads the National Security Department. State TV said both were in stable condition.
Rebels claimed responsibility, saying they targeted the room where the top government security officials in charge of crushing the revolt were meeting.
Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of nearly 300 unarmed U.N. observers in Syria, condemned the violence and encouraged a diplomatic solution, which appears increasingly out of reach.
"It pains me to say, but we are not on the track for peace in Syria," Mood said in Damascus.
Hours later, China and Russia vetoed a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria's crisis — reflecting divisions between them and the West on who is responsible for Syria's crisis and how to stop it.
The resolution would have imposed non-military sanctions against Assad's government if it didn't withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas within 10 days. It was tied to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict.
Russia and China have long opposed any moves that put the blame exclusively on Damascus or could pave the way for foreign military intervention in Syria.
The 11-2 vote, with two abstentions, leaves in limbo the future of the 300-person U.N. monitoring team in Syria, whose mandate expires Friday.
The latest fighting in Damascus, government forces fired heavy machine guns and mortars in battles with rebels in a number of neighborhoods in the capital, the Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Adding to the confusion, Syria's state-run TV warned citizens that gunmen were disguising themselves in military uniforms to carry out attacks.
"Gunmen are wearing Republican Guard uniforms in the neighborhoods of Tadamon, Midan, Qaa and Nahr Aisha, proving that they are planning attacks and crimes," SANA said.
Many residents were fleeing Damascus' Mezzeh neighborhood after troops surrounded it and posted snipers on rooftops while exchanging gunfire with opposition forces.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said rebels damaged one helicopter and disabled three military vehicles.
Rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in the Jdeidet Artouz area, killing at least five officers, the group said.
Activist claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government bars most media from working independently in the country.
The unarmed observers were authorized for 90 days to monitor a cease-fire and implementation of Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan, but the truce never took hold and the monitors have found themselves largely locked down because of the persistent violence.
Mood said the observers "will become relevant when the political process takes off."
Syria's 16-month crisis began with protests inspired by the Arab Spring wave of revolutions, but it has evolved into a civil war, with rebels fighting to topple Assad.
Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, most of them civilians. The Syrian government says more than 4,000 security officers have been killed. It does not given numbers of civilian dead.
___
Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer and John Heilprin contributed reporting from the United Nations.

[Stavros]

I am not sure if the bombing in Damascus marks a tipping point and that from here on in Syria is in a state of civil war; I think that right now the Russians are the key to what they would call 'containment', with the hope that more diplomacy and dialogue will draw back from violence.

There is some evidence that the military are not in total control, rebels have been seen manning roadblocks in the suburbs of Damascus but it isn't clear if these were 24-hour barricades or shows of bravado -certainly right now the opposition doesn't have the firepower or manpower to take on the army.

It is conceivable that the bombings in Damascus were an inside job, a Russian-backed attempt to remove the Asad family from the state and replace it with a congenial military government as happened in Egypt between the removal of Mubarak and the elections this year. Russia a) wants to protect its only reliable ally in the Middle East and the naval facility at Tartous; and b) stick one to the USA and its allies who want to force change on Syria regardless of the consequences. Moreover, the Russians are in conflict with Iran who are backing Asad which is another reason to get rid of the family's hold on power.

Complicating this is the wider conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the deterioration of the current government in Israel which has all but collapsed following Kadima's removal of support for Netanyahu -thus, containment now is a response to the fear that an unwinnable war is breaking out in Syria which will drag in various factions in Syria itself, and involve interested parties in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel -throw in all of the sectarian issues you can think of and as one might say in exasperation: sort that lot out! Unfortunately, the comparison with the civil war in Lebanon may be apt; 100,00+ dead, sectarian parties aided and abetted by all-comers in the region and outside it, and ultimately no structural change to the politics.

This paper from Brandeis offers a balanced view of the options, suggesting diplomacy is still the key one:
http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB64.pdf

The Council on Foreign Relations offers these profiles of who matters in the Syrian regime, including two of the people who were killed in the bombing:
http://www.cfr.org/syria/syrias-leaders/p9085

Finally a brief but interesting assessment from the Irish Times yesterday
http://campus.ie/news/national-news/assad-losing-control-in-syria-us

[Dino Velvet]

I am not sure if the bombing in Damascus marks a tipping point and that from here on in Syria is in a state of civil war; I think that right now the Russians are the key to what they would call 'containment', with the hope that more diplomacy and dialogue will draw back from violence.

There is some evidence that the military are not in total control, rebels have been seen manning roadblocks in the suburbs of Damascus but it isn't clear if these were 24-hour barricades or shows of bravado -certainly right now the opposition doesn't have the firepower or manpower to take on the army.

It is conceivable that the bombings in Damascus were an inside job, a Russian-backed attempt to remove the Asad family from the state and replace it with a congenial military government as happened in Egypt between the removal of Mubarak and the elections this year. Russia a) wants to protect its only reliable ally in the Middle East and the naval facility at Tartous; and b) stick one to the USA and its allies who want to force change on Syria regardless of the consequences. Moreover, the Russians are in conflict with Iran who are backing Asad which is another reason to get rid of the family's hold on power.

Complicating this is the wider conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the deterioration of the current government in Israel which has all but collapsed following Kadima's removal of support for Netanyahu -thus, containment now is a response to the fear that an unwinnable war is breaking out in Syria which will drag in various factions in Syria itself, and involve interested parties in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel -throw in all of the sectarian issues you can think of and as one might say in exasperation: sort that lot out! Unfortunately, the comparison with the civil war in Lebanon may be apt; 100,00+ dead, sectarian parties aided and abetted by all-comers in the region and outside it, and ultimately no structural change to the politics.

This paper from Brandeis offers a balanced view of the options, suggesting diplomacy is still the key one:
http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/meb/MEB64.pdf

The Council on Foreign Relations offers these profiles of who matters in the Syrian regime, including two of the people who were killed in the bombing:
http://www.cfr.org/syria/syrias-leaders/p9085

Finally a brief but interesting assessment from the Irish Times yesterday
http://campus.ie/news/national-news/assad-losing-control-in-syria-us

Nice post. Thanks.

[Stavros]

While many eyes have been fixed on the Olympic Games in London, the situation in Syria has become precarious to say the least. The only existing vehicle for a negotiated settlement, the Annan Plan has ended, while the battle for Aleppo has raged with no conclusion so far. The defection of the Prime Minister Riad al-Hijab has been seen as a further weakening of a regime but not a body blow as Hijab was not a crucial member of the ruling elite. He is from the Hauran on the border with Jordan in the South, but has decamped to Qatar (no surprise there).

The current dangers are posed by the increasing support that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are providing for the 'mainstream' Sunni rebels, aided surreptitiously it is claimed by the USA who one assumes also have 'special forces' in the country; while Iran is using the kidnapping of 'Pilgrims' -some say they are Republican Guards who were sent to advise the Alawite 'Shabiha' militia- to offer its support for Asad and threaten the Americans who they think are pulling all the strings. The Salafi extremists based in the north-east at Deir at-Zor have been joined by foreign Jihadis, usually grouped under the 'al-Qaeda' moniker but its hard to know for sure who is organsing them, but their presence is causing problems because they are not welcome in Syria. I am not sure what the Russians are doing, perhaps since the end of the Annan Plan they have been re-considering their position.

If the Russians believe they can make a difference, the removal of Asad and his replacement as a 'unifying' Prime Minister with an ally of Riad Hijab, the much-respected former Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara'a, backed by a re-structured military could be an option. The army and the air force appear to have held together in spite of some defections, not enough to weaken them fatally, although there are reports that the military is low on supplies.

If 'Egyptian Rules' are followed, the theory goes, the Army would lose its Alawite elite, gain a Sunni elite, and not lose their links to the economy; the Asad family would leave the country, presumably for either Iran or Russia; a negotiated settlement with the various factions among the rebels would lead to a transitional government pending elections, and the Russians as the prime movers would retain their status as best friend and keep their naval base in Tartous. If the Russians believe this might work, it might be better to bring the US in on the deal to make it look more diplomatically balanced, but as this is hypothetical I guess I am a dreamer on this one.

Against this, however, the King of Jordan has claimed that Asad might abandon Damascus, and try and revive the Alawite State based in Latakia and Tartous on the coast that the French created when they took on the Mandate in 1921. The French initially divided the country into five separate states when they took control by force: if history returns to this bleak scenario (and there are Syrians who think Lebanon is just one part of Syria and should not be a separate state), Syria could implodes into sectarian enclaves, with the Kurds in the north posing a major problem for Turkey which, in addition to its attempt to deal with refugees fears a deepening militarisation of a sensitive area which impacts on Turkey itself.

Although it has not been part of politics for a long time, the Ottoman Sanjak of Alexandretta (geographically the envrions of contemporary Iskenderun) which Turkey annexed in 1938 is still theoreticallly claimed to be part of Syria. On paper the opportunity for mischief-making and decades of civil war should not be ruled out. For that matter, Ibn Saud in 1925, the last time his warrior 'Brothers' (the famed Ikhwan) invaded TransJordan, he laid claim to the whole of the Arab Middle East including what is now Israel...one wonders what ambitions the Saudis really have these days.

Is it too late for the Saudis and Qatar on one side, and Iran and Russia on the other to draw back, de-escalate and back a major US/Russian push for negotiations that would end the Asad era? I just can't see these people at the moment doing so, but what I can't figure out is what these outsiders think the end-game looks like in Syria. Yes, chronic divisions amongst Syrian Muslims, and dangerous tensions with the non-Muslim and secular communities won't make any post-Asad transition smoother, but an Egyptian-style solution for the short-to-medium term looks better than the alternative, which is civil war. Surely someone in the Obama administration must see this unfolding? I think the operative word is Help!

If anyone else has views on this please express them, I sometimes think I am deluded to think that the players in this dirty game have had enough and want to end it with something approaching a more peaceful solution.

[Dino Velvet]

Thanks for the update, Stavros. Very thorough covering all the bases.

[bishr]

i am syrian, u people here have no idea what u r talking about! it is amazing how well the fucking media in the US brainwashes everyone there. it sickens me to read that the country which is funding the terrorists beheading us and raping our children and this coming right after they bombed fallujah with enough white phosphor to cause 15% of newborns to come with all kinds of weird deformations like having extra legs and arms and cancer.

u should know that the majority of syrians are more than happy to die for our country and specifically for our leader president bashar al assad, and that we fully back what our amazing army is doing to combat the hateful militias backed specifically by uncle sam and of course the saudis and the rest of the gulf scum, i also assure everyone that we have more than enough missiles set aside to turn the USA's precious gulf to hell. how idiotic is it to think that the zionism, iperialism, gulf wahabis, and of course satan itself which is the turks all want what's good for syria. yes the saudis are such a good example of liberty, whipping women for trying on nail polish is exactly what we need to spread around the world.

syria is like no other place in the world, damascus is the oldest continuously inhibited city in the world, we are not going to be defeated by scum that hardly have any place in history.

the USA can continue to send via turkey all the suicide bombers to bomb children and then the next day bomb the funeral of these children it wants, it will not make any difference.

u people can continue jerking off while watching CNN and enjoy the enhanced doses of brainwashing. i wonder if the iraqis with their modest capabilities managed to kill that many foreign invading soldiers and caused tons more to commit suicide, how many will syria harvest. i was friends with many americans here including ones in the UNDOF and other UN missions, i can confidently say that it is better for them to find other jobs that enlisting in the army for 4 years or whatever. they have no motive to die for, they r lost confused disparate children.

[bishr]

right, a 64 year old visitor from iran is now republican guard members! very believable especially when u show an entry permit claiming it is proof that he is in fact a republican guard, that sure adds a lot of credibility.

[bishr]

i am sure CNN played this like a million times because it sure wants everyone to know what happens everywhere in teh world:

Evidence of Media Complicity With Terrorists Slitting Throats in Syria - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CecJuIQ0T4o)

i am sure CNN also daily shows u how the saudi forces chase protestors with cars and run them over. sure the saudis are very humane and that is why they r best friends with the US, only the syrians are evil, killing someone firing RPG-7 shells are a monetary is surely not justifiable!! pissing on dead afghan farmers after killing them like the US soldiers do is the right thing ethically and morally, yes the US should rule the world with its compassion and humanity.

[broncofan]

So Bishr,
Are you saying there would be no Free Syrian Army without foreign assistance? You also do not think Assad is a dictator who has engaged in inhumane excesses in fighting the rebels? I read that some soldiers in Assad's army were killed for not shooting unarmed demonstrators. I read this on Al Jazeera. I am not saying you are wrong, but surely there must be some resistance to Assad even without the undue influence of zionism, imperialism, gulf wahabbism, and satan.

[thombergeron]

Awesome! Our very own sock puppet.

Hey bishr! ابحث عن سقوط أسعد

[bishr]

So Bishr,
Are you saying there would be no Free Syrian Army without foreign assistance? You also do not think Assad is a dictator who has engaged in inhumane excesses in fighting the rebels? I read that some soldiers in Assad's army were killed for not shooting unarmed demonstrators. I read this on Al Jazeera. I am not saying you are wrong, but surely there must be some resistance to Assad even without the undue influence of zionism, imperialism, gulf wahabbism, and satan.

what i am saying is that there is no such thing as the free syrian shit, it is made up of many many separate groups of the scum of society, mainly smugglers, wanted criminals, drug dealers and their followers, and of course the majority are brainwashed jihadists who somehow got convinced that killing people is what god wants and is what islam wants. all of these were happily funded by the wonderful people at saudi arabia and qatar to bring democracy to syria, they don't even have a parliament in qatar and in saudi arabia, the biggest thing the city council can decide for example is which road to give a fresh coat of tarmac.

of course the rebels wouldn't have been able to do this much damage without foreign aid! for god sakes most of them can't read!!! how would they exist in the first place if turkey and lebanon wasn't providing territories and training camps for them??? do u think the syrian army would have let armed rebels thrive within syria for so long? do u think they r executing their attacks on vital military bases and everything related to electricity and oil without direct help from the CIA in turkey with satellite images and info on the movement of syrian troops???

what kind of fucked up so called army would want a guy like this Riad Al As3ad leading it!!! the guy is a failed desk officer who defected to turkey and has a shitty record of failing every chance to up his rank for years! jesus how does the media feed people so much crap! i mean another guy who is referred to as a doctor wahid sakr is in fact someone who didn't make it past the ninth grade and was fired from the police for stealing cars yet u see him on the news channels discussing the future of syria and carrying the message of the syrian people to the world!

u can't be more wrong about our president and this is coming from someone who gets no special benefit from what the media calls the syrian regime at all other than being an average syrian citizen, and i am not from the same religious sect he is. he is a symbol and the only hope for us to move forward.

as for the peaceful protestors u r talking about that the army is forcing soldiers to kill, i want to tell u that there was not a single day here of peaceful protests since it started, and if the army wanted to kill these protestors (which i completely disagree that they should be called that), would it ask ordinary soldiers to do that and risk such exposure especially since syria is made up of so many sects and groups that all have to serve in the military??? wasn't it obvious that these soldiers might refuse and then they would have to kill him? couldn't they use special forces to take out these protestors?? such a silly hypothesis. it is no secret that we have brutal special forces! it is a matter of pride that they r there to do their work when duty calls, read about the so called darya massacre, the stupid rebels were having fun throwing mortar shells at a nearby military airport and running wild in darya, and after that within 48 hours 440 of them were shot dead at close range combat, so the fact is that when the syrian army takes it decision to act, it does so with massive impact and without worrying about some soldier refusing to follow orders.

please don't even mention qatar's aljazeera, it is the most blood thirsty channel in the world, it is just sickening how far they go, but qatar will learn its lesson soon, it is not even a country, it is a petrol and gas station with an american military base occupying almost half its land!!! where is aljazeera's coverage of what is happening in bahrain??? where is it revealing reports about the saudi forces that occupied bahrain to control the protests there? why doesn't it cry over the people being shot directly in the eyes with rubber bullets there? what about the prisoners there that lost their speech ability from constant execution? where are the reports on what all the wahabi fuckers call the hula conquest which aljazeera calls the hula massacre, why doesn't aljazeera show its viewers that countless saudis and many other enemies were thrilled that their militias managed to slay so many children there!!! did aljazeera say that they were mostly relatives of a syrian parliament member that the militias warned not to participate in the parliament? how come when covering protests syria they say there were thousands in a protest when it is in fact made up of only tens of people including many children getting slapped on the face when failing to raise the signs high enough??? haven't u seen any of these on youtube??? how come when over 2 million people gather in a march to support our country aljazeera calls them a few thousand government employees forced to participate to save their jobs????

if our president was a dictator spewing his hate on this resistance u talk about, wouldn't he know better than to commit a massacre specifically every time there is a meeting in the security council??? is he deliberately trying to embarrass russia and china??? speaking of the security council reminds me of that whore susan rice who is disgusted by the 3 vetos from russia and china!!! isn't the bitch disgusted from the over 60 vetos that the USA made to protect israel's right to bomb and starve the Palestinians and take down their houses and unleash its hate on everything belonging to them especially the countless olive trees they used bulldozers to kill????

doesn't anyone follow what for example Webster Tarpley reports from syria? Thierry Meyssan also giving first hand accounts of what is happening? Robert Fisk as well? George Galloway??????

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-rebel-army-theyre-a-gang-of-foreigners-8073717.html

[Stavros]

what i am saying is that there is no such thing as the free syrian shit, it is made up of many many separate groups of the scum of society, mainly smugglers, wanted criminals, drug dealers and their followers, and of course the majority are brainwashed jihadists who somehow got convinced that killing people is what god wants and is what islam wants.
doesn't anyone follow what for example Webster Tarpley reports from syria? Thierry Meyssan also giving first hand accounts of what is happening? Robert Fisk as well? George Galloway??????


Bishr, you should probably read through the posts in this thread, the opinions expressed are not extreme for the most part, and some of us are more informed on Syria than you think is the case.

You know that the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was founded in the 1930s and that it split in the 1960s, much as Syrian politics has been characterised by division for the last 100 years, even though early examples of Arab Nationalism surfaced as early as the 1870s in the journal al-Jinan and formed part of the growing opposition to Ottoman rule. To describe either the leadership or the members of the Syrian opposition as the scum of society, mainly smugglers, wanted criminals, drug dealers and their followers is either ignorance or a childish insult.

I don't carry a torch for the Brotherhood or any other opposition group, but then I am not Syrian anyway -but they have existed long enough, and represent enough people in Syria to be accepted as one of the groups who must expect to win seats in an election in a democratic election -as indeed they did in the 1960s- and be given an input into the formation of a new Syiran government. Whether or not the Islamic opposition can find any unity among themselves I doubt, and it is clear that this a fundamental weakness that has enabled the Asad government to continue.

Indeed, bitter divisions have characterised Syrian politics since 1920 and you only need to look at the fate of the Ba'ath Party to understand how pervasive this lack of unity has been, not least when Hafez al-Asad sentenced Michel Aflaq to death in 1971 -for what? Violence has played a key role in the creation of a military capitalist state in Syria, what Hafez al-Asad did, in addition to infiltrating the army into every part of the economy, was to create networks of patronage which benefited many Syrians, yet Syria, which was one of the richest, and also politically liberal regions in the Middle East in 1900, is now one of the poorest, badly organised, politically and violently divided, and in spite of Hafez al-Asad's posturing, totally incapable of regaining al-Jawlan from Israel, not by negotiation, not by force. A stability of terror can only last so long, and the longer it goes on, the less likely it is going to end in a peaceful transition from the current political system to a new one.

Bashar al-Asad did not want to go into politics, but because he came from outside it, it was assumed he would in fact be able to reform Syria. Ten years later and he has shown himself out of touch, inept, and as willing to condone violence as his father, even if Bashar himself is not in control of the military. Indeed, as I said in another post, he could die tonight and the military would continue as it is. But he is no innocent, he knew what his father had done to stay in power, and by using the army to attack its own population, Bashar has sealed his warrant -if not death, then exile in Russia, where his wife is and, incidentally, not a few wealthy Syrians.

When you cite Robert Fisk, do you not also cite a journalist who has spent the last 30 odd years attacking Hafez al-Assad? From the aggressive attempt to force Lebanon into a de facto province of Syria throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the shabby attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in the 1980s that Asad insisted on just to spite Arafat, to the savage attacks on Hama in 1982; not to mention the various armed groups and murderers -PFLP-GC, Carlos 'the Jackal', Alois Brunner to name but a few who all had their time in Damascus, at your expense, if indeed you are Syrian.

You can admit that Syria is in the process of change, or you can fight against it. You have not actually produced a coherent analysis of the situation, which is a pity because there isn't enough of it. We are aware on this thread of the support being given to all sides in this conflict, some of us hope that in the near future Bashar al-Assad will do the right thing, and begin a process of change that will remove the strait-jacket that has prevented Syria from expressing itself for the past 42 years. It would be better for you to join that debate than dismiss your fellow countrymen as idiots. We would also welcome a serious debate on the issue in this forum.

[bishr]

http://youtu.be/J5YLC1B3szA

[bishr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5YLC1B3szA&feature=youtu.be

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-rebuffs-clinton-syria-iran-penalties-152652475.html

Russia rebuffs Clinton on Syria, Iran penalties

By MATTHEW LEE | Associated Press – 4 hrs ago


VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AP) — Russia on Saturday soundly rejected U.S. calls for increased pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to relinquish power. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to prod Moscow into supporting U.N. action to end the crisis in Syria and she expressed hope that Congress would repeal Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after meeting Clinton on the sidelines of a meeting of Pacific Rim leaders, told reporters that Moscow is opposed to U.S.-backed penalties against the Assad government, in addition to new ones against Iran over its nuclear program, because they harm Russian commercial interests.
"Our American partners have a prevailing tendency to threaten and increase pressure, adopt ever more sanctions against Syria and against Iran," Lavrov said. "Russia is fundamentally against this, since for resolving problems you have to engage the countries you are having issues with and not isolate them."
"Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Syria and Iran increasingly take on an extraterritorial character, directly affecting the interests of Russian business, in particular banks," he said. "We clearly stated that this was unacceptable, and they listened to us. What the result will be, I don't know."
Clinton, who also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in Vladivostok, had urged Moscow to reconsider its opposition to the penalties, particularly against Syria in order to convince Assad that he should agree to a political transition, according to a senior U.S. official.
Clinton told her Russian counterpart that the Security Council needed to do more to send "a strong message" to Assad, given the escalating level of violence in Syria, said the official, who was present during the meeting. Clinton made clear to Lavrov that the Security Council risks "abrogating its responsibility" if it fails to act.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.
Russia and China have blocked three Security Council resolutions that would have punished Syria if the Assad government did not accept a negotiated political transition. Clinton said in Beijing this past week that the U.S. was "disappointed" by the vetoes.
She had earlier called the actions "appalling" and said they put Russia and China on the "wrong side of history." That assertion was rejected by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at a news conference with Clinton on Wednesday, when Yang said history would prove China's position to be correct.
On Saturday, Lavrov said Russia's opposition to penalizing Syria was based on the premise that "they don't achieve anything."
The question of sanctions against Syria and Iran will be a main topic of conversation among officials later this month at the U.N. General Assembly, and the U.S. official said Clinton had discussed both with Putin during dinner in Vladivostok.
Clinton, who's in Russia's Far East representing President Barack Obama at the APEC summit, also discussed with Putin topics including wildlife conservation, the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and bilateral trade and investment, the official said.
Despite Russia's refusal to join the U.S. and its allies in seeking more pressure against Syria and Iran, Clinton told business leaders at the APEC meeting that the Obama administration wants Congress to repeal a 1974 law that denies Russia normal trade relations with the U.S because of Soviet-era laws restricting the emigration of Jews.
Now that Russia has joined the World Trade Organization, Clinton said the Obama administration is "working closely" with lawmakers on that issue and hopes that "Congress will pass on this important piece of legislation this month."
At the same time, Washington is looking for Russia to play a greater role in the Asia-Pacific region as the U.S. tries to quell growing maritime tensions.
Territorial disputes, including between U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, sparked by nationalist rhetoric have fueled fears of conflict.
Clinton has spent the last week in the region urging peaceful resolutions to competing territorial claims between China and its smaller neighbors in the South China Sea. The U.S. wants to see the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China establish quickly a code of conduct for the area to be followed by a mechanism to resolve the conflicts peacefully without intimidation, coercion or clashes.
She began Saturday by signing an agreement with Lavrov that will enhance U.S.-Russia scientific cooperation in the Antarctic, as well as link national parks on either side of the Bering Strait.





http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/An1llmeSxytfIhzRdgQg1Q--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MTg5Njtjcj0xO2N3PTI2MTY7ZHg9MD tkeT0wO2ZpPXVsY3JvcDtoPTQ1NztxPTg1O3c9NjMw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/4533da9f5a2c8e191a0f6a7067001aee.jpg
Associated Press/Mikhail Metzel,Pool - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meets U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton on her arrival at the APEC summit in Vladivostok, Russia, Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012.
(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel,Pool)

[bishr]

the friendly rebels a few hours ago gave aleppo a fair well gift before the syrian army completely removes them from it, they detonated a massive bomb in a building block containing three hospitals and a school-turned-refugee-shelter. cunt face clinton should do more to help them! they r so nice.

http://youtu.be/lTxLGOUIElw

[bishr]

it just baffles me that cunt face clinton would say that americans must be shocked that their ambassador would be killed like that in the exact city the helped rebel against and defeat the late libyan leader mouamar al ghaddafi!!! is she kidding me??? isn't killing 150,000 libyans directly and indirectly but mostly directly with air strikes reason enough??? isn't destroying the country's infrastructure reason enough??? isn't giving a huge percentage of the proceeds from the libyan oil to foreign companies reason enough??? isn't bringing to power people who think beheading is the best way to run a country reason enough???

she talks so affectionately about the families of the killed americans and their children! what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's sons??? what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's grandsons???

how can anyone who so lovingly nurtured the islamic extremists be shocked that they would turn on him/her??? such behavior was made the most basic and instinctive one in them!

[bishr]

BBC News HD - Syrian rebels try to use prisoner for suicide bombing 2012 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbxz6THXsf4&feature=plcp)

the BBC commentary on the video is far worse than the video itself! they r taking such a sickening crime so casually! watching it felt almost like watching "cannibal holocaust" again!

[Stavros]

it just baffles me that cunt face clinton would say that americans must be shocked that their ambassador would be killed like that in the exact city the helped rebel against and defeat the late libyan leader mouamar al ghaddafi!!! is she kidding me??? isn't killing 150,000 libyans directly and indirectly but mostly directly with air strikes reason enough??? isn't destroying the country's infrastructure reason enough??? isn't giving a huge percentage of the proceeds from the libyan oil to foreign companies reason enough??? isn't bringing to power people who think beheading is the best way to run a country reason enough???

she talks so affectionately about the families of the killed americans and their children! what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's sons??? what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's grandsons???

how can anyone who so lovingly nurtured the islamic extremists be shocked that they would turn on him/her??? such behavior was made the most basic and instinctive one in them!

You need to acquaint yourself with a few facts, Bishr.

1) The attack on the US Embassy Consulate in Bengazi was planned as a retaliation for the murder of Yahya al-Libi, allegedly second-in-command in al-Qaeda, who was killed in a drone attack in Pakistan on June 4th.

2) Muammar al-Qadhafi was not the legitimate leader of Libya, he was not elected to the post, but seized it by force in 1969. In the 40-odd years that followed, Qadhafi systematically looted the country's oil revenues, waged war against anyone who opposed his rule whether they were western-style democrats or Islamic conservatives; he spent millions of $$ and sent thousands of Libyan soldiers to their deaths in his ridiculous attempt to expand into Chad; he was intimately involved in the supply of arms and ammunition to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland; he gave sanctuary to mass murderers like Abu Nidal, Carlos 'the Jackal'; it was with Qadhafi's approval that an as-yet unidentified gunman shot dead a British policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher when opening fire on a legtimate demonstration in London against Qadhafi's rule in Libya; and Qadhafi repeatedly insulted the Arab people and conspired to undermine their right to choose their own governments.

3) The destruction to Libya's infrastructure was minimal, and not just because there isn't much to destroy outside the highways, the man-made river, and the oil installations, most of which were untouched.

4) It was because of Qadhafi's reckless political activities that Libya was ostracised by the international system and unable to gain access to the technology that will unlock value in the Libyan oil industry, this was the reason why Qadhafi was prepared to do anthing and say anything to overhaul the petroleum industry in Libya -so it was your hero Qadhafi who signed the contracts with BP, with Shell, and the others. Libya needs a modernised petroleum industry, there is nothing wrong with inviting the latest technology and capital into the country; if in the future the Libyan government wants to nationalise its oil industry again, that is its right.

What you need to do is mount a defence, if you can, of Muammar al-Qadhafi, of Hafiz al-Asad and his son Bashir. Best of luck!

ps Your abusive remarks about Hillary Clinton are unworthy of anyone who posts in HungAngels.

[Prospero]

Bishr - please post controversial and provocative views by all means, but refrain from the deeply abusive remarks made about Mrs Clinton. Otherwise all your posts will be deleted.

[broncofan]

it just baffles me that cunt face clinton would say that americans must be shocked that their ambassador would be killed like that in the exact city the helped rebel against and defeat the late libyan leader mouamar al ghaddafi!!! is she kidding me??? isn't killing 150,000 libyans directly and indirectly but mostly directly with air strikes reason enough??? isn't destroying the country's infrastructure reason enough??? !
It shouldn't matter that I don't accept your premises. In morality, parties can be blamed just as easily for inaction as for action. But let's say we accept what you have said about U.S foreign policy. Does that make the murder of an ambassador justified? The murderers blamed an offensive film about the Prophet Mohammad. But why does it matter if that was the motivation or what you have claimed is the motivation?

If you wonder why there is so much killing and so much death it is because people find it so easy to justify murdering innocents. So you disagree with U.S policy. So you think Hillary Clinton is a "cuntface" and don't respect women enough generally to avoid using such terms. Is there really a reason to storm an embassy and murder a man?

What exactly was this man's culpability that he deserved death?

[flabbybody]

This is an intelligent exchange of view points but I'm thinking bishr's remarks violate our collective common decency.

[Prospero]

This is an intelligent exchange of view points but I'm thinking bishr's remarks violate our collective common decency.

I agree

[bishr]

It shouldn't matter that I don't accept your premises. In morality, parties can be blamed just as easily for inaction as for action. But let's say we accept what you have said about U.S foreign policy. Does that make the murder of an ambassador justified? The murderers blamed an offensive film about the Prophet Mohammad. But why does it matter if that was the motivation or what you have claimed is the motivation?

If you wonder why there is so much killing and so much death it is because people find it so easy to justify murdering innocents. So you disagree with U.S policy. So you think Hillary Clinton is a "cuntface" and don't respect women enough generally to avoid using such terms. Is there really a reason to storm an embassy and murder a man?

What exactly was this man's culpability that he deserved death?


please people wake up, we r not just hateful blind enraged morons and i like i already said, i so totally oppose the crazy people that killed him but it is the USA that put them in power by obliterating the libyan army with cowardly airstrikes!

as for why i celebrated the death of the embassador, all i can say is that a picture is worth 1000000000000000 words! look at this photo! look how he was giving the thumbs up over the dead body of a glorified leader for countless millions! look how he is happy about leader al ghaddafi got murdered after being violated with a steel rebar in his rectum??? can u not see the irony??????? is it that hard to understand that when someone so profoundly harms u, u become angry and want to return the favor??????? if somebody acts like that over your father's dead body and smiles and gives the thumbs up, would u be ok with that???

anyway the ones who killed him are not at all pro-ghaddafi, they r the crazy extremists doing their thing just because.

it is america's extremely cruel foreign policy that made america such a hated nation. it is truly a shame, i have many good american friends that i have been friends with for over a decade.

[broncofan]

Bishr,
but by your logic then you should also be killed because you are celebrating his death. There is nothing different about what you and he did except that he was celebrating the death of someone with much more blood on his hands. But again, nobody should be killed for being offensive, even in a grossly indecent way. Otherwise, where does that leave you? The killers also gave a different justification for their actions than you do. This is relevant because what you are providing is a post-hoc justification for his death that does not necessarily shed light on the motives of his killers.

But again, of course the government and their supporters would be angry with us for supporting the rebels. Whether doing so actually increases the death toll or a humanitarian crisis depends on the balance of power. In cases where the rebels have no chance whatsoever, aiding them prolongs their misery and increases the death toll.

[bishr]

You need to acquaint yourself with a few facts, Bishr.

1) The attack on the US Embassy Consulate in Bengazi was planned as a retaliation for the murder of Yahya al-Libi, allegedly second-in-command in al-Qaeda, who was killed in a drone attack in Pakistan on June 4th.

2) Muammar al-Qadhafi was not the legitimate leader of Libya, he was not elected to the post, but seized it by force in 1969. In the 40-odd years that followed, Qadhafi systematically looted the country's oil revenues, waged war against anyone who opposed his rule whether they were western-style democrats or Islamic conservatives; he spent millions of $$ and sent thousands of Libyan soldiers to their deaths in his ridiculous attempt to expand into Chad; he was intimately involved in the supply of arms and ammunition to the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland; he gave sanctuary to mass murderers like Abu Nidal, Carlos 'the Jackal'; it was with Qadhafi's approval that an as-yet unidentified gunman shot dead a British policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher when opening fire on a legtimate demonstration in London against Qadhafi's rule in Libya; and Qadhafi repeatedly insulted the Arab people and conspired to undermine their right to choose their own governments.

3) The destruction to Libya's infrastructure was minimal, and not just because there isn't much to destroy outside the highways, the man-made river, and the oil installations, most of which were untouched.

4) It was because of Qadhafi's reckless political activities that Libya was ostracised by the international system and unable to gain access to the technology that will unlock value in the Libyan oil industry, this was the reason why Qadhafi was prepared to do anthing and say anything to overhaul the petroleum industry in Libya -so it was your hero Qadhafi who signed the contracts with BP, with Shell, and the others. Libya needs a modernised petroleum industry, there is nothing wrong with inviting the latest technology and capital into the country; if in the future the Libyan government wants to nationalise its oil industry again, that is its right.

What you need to do is mount a defence, if you can, of Muammar al-Qadhafi, of Hafiz al-Asad and his son Bashir. Best of luck!

ps Your abusive remarks about Hillary Clinton are unworthy of anyone who posts in HungAngels.

1- i don't really think much about the reason why he was killed, all i was saying is that it is by no means a surprise! and again what u r saying about it being in retaliation for killing someone in alqaida is in line with what i was saying, the USA creates alqaida and then it bites than hand that feeds it.

2- u call bringing someone to power who begged Bernard-Henri Lévy to help him destroy his country and kill 150,000 citizens making things right??? is robbing most of the oil proceeds called modernizing now??? do u know that in tripoli the electricity goes out now for over 8 hours a day???????? do u know that before all this crap, the electricity was free for non commercial use????? do u know that al ghaddafi is seen as a leader by millions of people not just libyans?? and even if he is a dictator, who made NATO/USA god and gave them the right to do this to another country?????? is your information about the damage made to libya coming from CNN????

3- why should the people of a sovereign country have to mount a defense to live in peace?? why don't u mount a defense for destroying iraq and killing 1.5 million people there and dumping countless radio active bombs making the children of falluja all deformed and sick with cancer????? who is the bloody killer, is it our president doctor Bashar Hafez Al Assad or George W. Bush???

how would your country deal with armed rebels beheading people??? would u thank them and hand them the country and the fate of over 23 million syrians???? or would u step up to the task and do what's needed to prevent a country for being sent back to the middle ages???????????

[broncofan]

if somebody acts like that over your father's dead body and smiles and gives the thumbs up, would u be ok with that???

Was Qaddafi your father? I've heard of children divorcing or disowning their parents because they've done unconscionable things. It's of course too late now, but that would be a reasonable option if your father was a murderous thug. Again, I can understand you being emotional about that if you are a close blood relative of Qaddafi, and either way it's a grossly indecent thing he did. Not worthy of being killed, not his killer's motive, and not worthy of celebrating his murder either.

If you're related to Qaddafi you don't have to tell people you know. I have an uncle that we're all a bit embarrassed about as well.

[bishr]

Bishr,
but by your logic then you should also be killed because you are celebrating his death. There is nothing different about what you and he did except that he was celebrating the death of someone with much more blood on his hands. But again, nobody should be killed for being offensive, even in a grossly indecent way. Otherwise, where does that leave you? The killers also gave a different justification for their actions than you do. This is relevant because what you are providing is a post-hoc justification for his death that does not necessarily shed light on the motives of his killers.

But again, of course the government and their supporters would be angry with us for supporting the rebels. Whether doing so actually increases the death toll or a humanitarian crisis depends on the balance of power. In cases where the rebels have no chance whatsoever, aiding them prolongs their misery and increases the death toll.


like i told u, i don't at all like the ones who killed him! and the difference between me and him is that i didn't travel thousands of miles to another country that my army bombed and then took a photo like that with the leader of that country! feeling justice was served is something i felt unwillingly, it is not a decision i made to feel happy about it, can u understand what i mean, i am having trouble finding the right word, my english isn't that good. anyway, if it means i should be killed then so be it, most of us aren't scared of dying, the overwhelming feeling is sadness for seeing our beautiful country being destroyed.

as for the so called rebels, let me just explain something:

1- more than half of them are not syrian, the USA is helping bring them from all over the earth for jihad in syria, so many libyans, tunisians, a huge number coming from yemen now and i am sure u at least read somewhere in the news that the USA is not killing the ones there in yemen who have agreed to move their business to syria. this is not the pro-government numbers, read what every reporter who has been in syria has said including the ones i mentioned earlier in this thread or read what Jacques Bérès the surgeon who was treating the wounded members of the militias has said! just google his name!

2- the USA/saudi/qatar/egypt and most of the other countries sending hte mad jehadists are more than happy to see them die even if they don't achieve their goal. hell, saudi arabia is releasing terrorist prisoners to send them to syria! they are more than happy to get rid of them. nobody wants to shorten their misery.

[bishr]

Bishr,
but by your logic then you should also be killed because you are celebrating his death. There is nothing different about what you and he did except that he was celebrating the death of someone with much more blood on his hands. But again, nobody should be killed for being offensive, even in a grossly indecent way. Otherwise, where does that leave you? The killers also gave a different justification for their actions than you do. This is relevant because what you are providing is a post-hoc justification for his death that does not necessarily shed light on the motives of his killers.

But again, of course the government and their supporters would be angry with us for supporting the rebels. Whether doing so actually increases the death toll or a humanitarian crisis depends on the balance of power. In cases where the rebels have no chance whatsoever, aiding them prolongs their misery and increases the death toll.


Was Qaddafi your father? I've heard of children divorcing or disowning their parents because they've done unconscionable things. It's of course too late now, but that would be a reasonable option if your father was a murderous thug. Again, I can understand you being emotional about that if you are a close blood relative of Qaddafi, and either way it's a grossly indecent thing he did. Not worthy of being killed, not his killer's motive, and not worthy of celebrating his murder either.

If you're related to Qaddafi you don't have to tell people you know. I have an uncle that we're all a bit embarrassed about as well.

i am syrian not libyan, i am not related to him. our cultures are so different, he is a symbol to millions of people who value pride and dignity! he is the leader that got italy to formally apologize for occupying and destroying libya. he is the leader that Silvio Berlusconi used to bend and kiss his hand!

i don't expect u to understand, we r from different worlds.

i don't have to be a blood relative to feel scorned when i see a symbol being humiliated.

[broncofan]

I understand what you mean. I am trying not to judge you too harshly, but we need to be careful even about feeling glad when a bad person (and sometimes this is a matter of opinion) is killed. It's not something everyone agrees on.

Bin Laden was killed, Hitler shot himself, Ariel Sharon had a stroke. All bad men imo and we can argue about their degree of culpability. I was not alive for Hitler, but there's nothing about his death that should bring anyone solace, comfort, or joy. Same goes for Bin Laden and Sharon. I know people celebrated when Bin Laden was killed, but it was a stupid and hollow celebration. Al Qaeda is a franchise now, an aspirational rather than tactical enterprise. The war with their ideology, a vicious and delusional one continues without him. Those who he killed remain dead.

Now this man did far less than any of these individuals. I think the word you're looking for is karma. You may not support what his killers did but you feel he has reaped what he sowed. People do offensive things all the time, and far worse than create mere offense. Their deaths can sometimes prevent further atrocities but otherwise provide no remedy.

[bishr]

I understand what you mean. I am trying not to judge you too harshly, but we need to be careful even about feeling glad when a bad person (and sometimes this is a matter of opinion) is killed. It's not something everyone agrees on.

Bin Laden was killed, Hitler shot himself, Ariel Sharon had a stroke. All bad men imo and we can argue about their degree of culpability. I was not alive for Hitler, but there's nothing about his death that should bring anyone solace, comfort, or joy. Same goes for Bin Laden and Sharon. I know people celebrated when Bin Laden was killed, but it was a stupid and hollow celebration. Al Qaeda is a franchise now, an aspirational rather than tactical enterprise. The war with their ideology, a vicious and delusional one continues without him. Those who he killed remain dead.

Now this man did far less than any of these individuals. I think the word you're looking for is karma. You may not support what his killers did but you feel he has reaped what he sowed. People do offensive things all the time, and far worse than create mere offense. Their deaths can sometimes prevent further atrocities but otherwise provide no remedy.


there is no remedy, no getting even steven, nope! it is a way of life now for many who were hurt.

one last thought about the ambassador, what i INITIALLY said about the incident here in this thread was not that i was happy but that i was totally baffled by the esteemed mrs. clinton talking about a sense of shock or surprise about the incident.

i know about karma! carson daly invented it during an episode of Last Call with Carson Daly! hhhhhhh

[bishr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX4IWGr-LSI&bpctr=1347817656

this is a video of the armed militias proudly explaining how they arrested and killed several army officers who are fresh graduates from the military engineering academies that were in a mini bus going either home or to attend court proceedings and report back on them (the female officer).

[bishr]

Syria - British MP George Galloway on Al-Mayadeen TV 03-09-2012 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10TJ-U1lIiY)

[yosi]

it just baffles me that cunt face clinton would say that americans must be shocked that their ambassador would be killed like that in the exact city the helped rebel against and defeat the late libyan leader mouamar al ghaddafi!!! is she kidding me??? isn't killing 150,000 libyans directly and indirectly but mostly directly with air strikes reason enough??? isn't destroying the country's infrastructure reason enough??? isn't giving a huge percentage of the proceeds from the libyan oil to foreign companies reason enough??? isn't bringing to power people who think beheading is the best way to run a country reason enough???

she talks so affectionately about the families of the killed americans and their children! what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's sons??? what about the bombing of al ghaddafi's grandsons???

how can anyone who so lovingly nurtured the islamic extremists be shocked that they would turn on him/her??? such behavior was made the most basic and instinctive one in them!

If you were living now in Syria and writing the same words about the Syrian foreign minister, would you still be alive to answer this question?

I think both of us know the answer........

[Stavros]

1- i don't really think much about the reason why he was killed, all i was saying is that it is by no means a surprise! and again what u r saying about it being in retaliation for killing someone in alqaida is in line with what i was saying, the USA creates alqaida and then it bites than hand that feeds it.

2- u call bringing someone to power who begged Bernard-Henri Lévy to help him destroy his country and kill 150,000 citizens making things right??? is robbing most of the oil proceeds called modernizing now??? do u know that in tripoli the electricity goes out now for over 8 hours a day???????? do u know that before all this crap, the electricity was free for non commercial use????? do u know that al ghaddafi is seen as a leader by millions of people not just libyans?? and even if he is a dictator, who made NATO/USA god and gave them the right to do this to another country?????? is your information about the damage made to libya coming from CNN????

3- why should the people of a sovereign country have to mount a defense to live in peace?? why don't u mount a defense for destroying iraq and killing 1.5 million people there and dumping countless radio active bombs making the children of falluja all deformed and sick with cancer????? who is the bloody killer, is it our president doctor Bashar Hafez Al Assad or George W. Bush???

how would your country deal with armed rebels beheading people??? would u thank them and hand them the country and the fate of over 23 million syrians???? or would u step up to the task and do what's needed to prevent a country for being sent back to the middle ages???????????

Bishr I dont understand your post. The situation in Afghanistan that nurtured al-Qaeda emerged from the transition from a monarchy to a republic in 1973-74, and the internal conflict among politicians who, frankly, did not expect to be handed power in the circumstances of the time. When the USSR intervened in 1979 it was at root an attempt to promote one faction of the 'Communist Party' and see how far it could go in extending its influece in Southern Asia. The USA was not interested in the internal politics of Afghanistan, it wanted to prevent the spread of influence of the USSR, and bleed the USSR of the funds needed to engage in the war in Afghanistan. If there was one party that was instrumental in helping al-Qaeda develop its 'base' it was Saudi Arabia, and as we know from Turki bin Faisal al-Saud they came to regret it. Saudi Arabia intervened in the war that broke out in the Yemen in 1962, supporting the Imam, while Nasser intervened on behalf of the Republicans -other than sending a lot of people to their deaths, it was not much of an achievement for either side, but was just one of many examples (the guerilla war in Dhofar being another).

Current evens would not be happening if countries like Libya and Syria had not been strangled by dictatorship for 40 odd years.

There is a revolution taking place in the region whose consequences are unknown; I don't believe anyone posting on HungAngels approves of any act of violence in Syria whoever is responsible for it; but if it is a genuine revolution, then 21 months in the life of the Arab Spring is too soon to be making judgements; I would suggest that 10 years is a more reasonable time-frame.

Bashar al-Asad has no legtimacy, he is not elected, he would not be elected if there was an election. The army has not collapsed in spite of defections; Iran is intervening on one side, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other, and there is little we can do about it. For what it is worth, more people have been killed, injured and raped in the 'Democratic Reublic of the Congo' since independence in 1960, and all for diamonds and other minerals. The best we can do in these circumstances is to bear witness for those who matter most -the victims.

[bishr]

If you were living now in Syria and writing the same words about the Syrian foreign minister, would you still be alive to answer this question?

I think both of us know the answer........

in a country like ours comprising of at least 18 different religious sects and ethnic groups many of which are not on good terms meaning they wish to annihilate each other, the kind of freedom u r talking about can't be had because of the intolerance and tendency toward violence engendered deep in most of the population, it is simply not suited for us and to be honest its presence or absence is hardly an issue given the harm that can come from it in our society. look at lebanon, they have that freedom there, what good has it done them?

having said that, i must also say that after dr. bashar al assad became president, things have changed drastically in these areas, and the iron grip of what u might call a police state was greatly reduced, and what is happening now is a proof of that as there was no chance in hell of such violations taking place in the time of president hafez al assad.

syrians value security and peace of mind almost over anything, ask here anyone now what is the thing they miss the most and they will tell u it is security, syria was one of the safest countries in the world, here in damascus before all this crap started, u would go out at 2 AM and find the streets filled with people going about their business and girls walking alone and foreigners -including americans- dining out, i used to even go to the animal shelter i own in the country side at midnight 4 days a week due to my day job, there was no such thing as fearing for your life here in syria and everyone knew it was because of the government had a very tight grip over security and that unfortunately is mutually exclusive with the kind of freedom u r talking about.

i have been in a detention facility before over a problem with my ID card, and i can tell with confidence that the syrian rule that said "u will not be harmed if u have not crossed any red lines" did apply fully.

we r not a democratic country in the western sense and we never wanted to be, please don't let the media hype convince u of anything otherwise, i wish u spoke arabic, it would have been easier to find testimonies to show u that what is happening is 100% about deep hate between religious sects that was nurtured for years by the religious figures from saudi arabia and qatar who own over 170 satellite religious channels bombarding sadly uneducated people with concepts that no human mind can accept starting with banning women from driving all the way up to fully justifying beheading of children if their haircut indicates they r of the alawai sect (of course only if u say: "praise god for making it halal to kill u" after u detach the head).

did u not see the female officer in the previous to last video i posted? everyone was very cool with her death and the disrespect her dead body is being treated with just because her hometown is the same as the president.

do u know that the so freedom loving so called libyan rebels passed a law to imprison anyone who orally praises al ghaddafi or any of his family members or any of his regime key people??? do u know that the sentence of this crime is life imprisonment if the judge deems that a harm to the country resulted from that praise??? is there anything i can say more after that! will a so called revolution in my country bring me the freedom to criticize someone without fear???

one last thought on the subject of freedom and justice, i would like to say and this is my personal opinion, that the USA is the most blood thirsty nation in the world starting with the mass killing of native americans all the way to sending young and mentally unstable american soldiers one of which has the capacity to single handidly butcher an entire afghan family.

[yosi]

syrians value security and peace of mind almost over anything, ask here anyone now what is the thing they miss the most and they will tell u it is security, syria was one of the safest countries in the world, here in damascus before all this crap started, u would go out at 2 AM and find the streets filled with people going about their business and girls walking alone and foreigners -including americans- dining out, i used to even go to the animal shelter i own in the country side at midnight 4 days a week due to my day job, there was no such thing as fearing for your life here in syria and everyone knew it was because of the government had a very tight grip over security and that unfortunately is mutually exclusive with the kind of freedom u r talking about.



Israel, your neighboring country, is a democratic country , without all the security Syrian style , but still , you can go out at 2 AM , and find the streets filled with poeple, so it's not the security that makes the difference , it's something else ............




i don't expect u to understand, we r from different worlds.



I agree with you , you were born and raised in a non-democratic society , you became used to it because you had no other choice.....

now you can write whatever on your mind without having to be afraid that you will heresome hard knockings on your door in the middle of the night after you have wrote your TRUE opinion , doesn't it give YOU something to think about?

[Stavros]

in a country like ours comprising of at least 18 different religious sects and ethnic groups many of which are not on good terms meaning they wish to annihilate each other, the kind of freedom u r talking about can't be had because of the intolerance and tendency toward violence engendered deep in most of the population, it is simply not suited for us and to be honest its presence or absence is hardly an issue given the harm that can come from it in our society. look at lebanon, they have that freedom there, what good has it done them?

having said that, i must also say that after dr. bashar al assad became president, things have changed drastically in these areas, and the iron grip of what u might call a police state was greatly reduced, and what is happening now is a proof of that as there was no chance in hell of such violations taking place in the time of president hafez al assad.

syrians value security and peace of mind almost over anything, ask here anyone now what is the thing they miss the most and they will tell u it is security, syria was one of the safest countries in the world, here in damascus before all this crap started, u would go out at 2 AM and find the streets filled with people going about their business and girls walking alone and foreigners -including americans- dining out, i used to even go to the animal shelter i own in the country side at midnight 4 days a week due to my day job, there was no such thing as fearing for your life here in syria and everyone knew it was because of the government had a very tight grip over security and that unfortunately is mutually exclusive with the kind of freedom u r talking about.

i have been in a detention facility before over a problem with my ID card, and i can tell with confidence that the syrian rule that said "u will not be harmed if u have not crossed any red lines" did apply fully.

we r not a democratic country in the western sense and we never wanted to be, please don't let the media hype convince u of anything otherwise, i wish u spoke arabic, it would have been easier to find testimonies to show u that what is happening is 100% about deep hate between religious sects that was nurtured for years by the religious figures from saudi arabia and qatar who own over 170 satellite religious channels bombarding sadly uneducated people with concepts that no human mind can accept starting with banning women from driving all the way up to fully justifying beheading of children if their haircut indicates they r of the alawai sect (of course only if u say: "praise god for making it halal to kill u" after u detach the head).

did u not see the female officer in the previous to last video i posted? everyone was very cool with her death and the disrespect her dead body is being treated with just because her hometown is the same as the president.

do u know that the so freedom loving so called libyan rebels passed a law to imprison anyone who orally praises al ghaddafi or any of his family members or any of his regime key people??? do u know that the sentence of this crime is life imprisonment if the judge deems that a harm to the country resulted from that praise??? is there anything i can say more after that! will a so called revolution in my country bring me the freedom to criticize someone without fear???

one last thought on the subject of freedom and justice, i would like to say and this is my personal opinion, that the USA is the most blood thirsty nation in the world starting with the mass killing of native americans all the way to sending young and mentally unstable american soldiers one of which has the capacity to single handidly butcher an entire afghan family.

Bishr I understand the difficulties of living in Syria right now, but your explanations don't make sense to me, and are not similar to any I have heard from other people from the region.

In the first place, foreign fighters have been attracted to numerous conflicts in the region since 1948, if not before, there is nothing new or unusual about it. Americans and Europeans -not necessarily Jewish- fought for the new State of Israel in 1948, and fought for it again in 1967. Curiously, fewer individual foreign fighters were involved on the Arab side in 1948 and 1967, fought by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq

However, as I said in another post, when civil war broke out in the Yemen in 1962, one side was supported by the Saudis and the other by the Egyptians, with the USA, Israel and the USSR also chipping in for either side. The guerillas at war with the Sultan of Oman in Dhofar in the 1960s were part supported by the Russians and the Chinese at various moments until the conflict ebbed away in the 1970s, while the main group of guerillas were defeated by an amalgam of troops from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran, with the help of the British SAS.

As for Lebanon, you make no mention of the civil war that raged for 15 years from 1975 to 1990 and which led Syria and Iran to intervene in domestic politics until the Syrians were forced to leave in 2005; the Iranians are still there. The violence inflicted on Lebanon by the Syrians has yet to be fully calculated. Why do you think the Lebanese were delighted to see the Syrians leave?

You could have mentioned those Palestinians forced out of the West Bank in 1967, who formed guerilla bands/fedayeen, and, having been responsible for a breakdown in law and order in Jordan were thrown out of that country in 'White September' 1970 -whereupon they decamped to Lebanon and created chaos in the south and were one of the sparks that created the civil war in 1975.

If you want to understand the violence in Syria today, you need to think about the battles for control of the state and the aborted experience of parliamentary democracy, both of which resulted in a dictatorship that created a stability of terror, the illusion of law and order underpinned by a social structure based on spies and informers, the use of the Ba'ath Party as a source of jobs and influence, and violent repression and imprisonment without trial, torture and execution for those opposed to the regime. So it is daft for you to say
we r not a democratic country in the western sense and we never wanted to be, please don't let the media hype convince u of anything otherwise
because there were parliamentary systems and elections in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria at various times between the 1920s and the present day -in all cases except in Lebanon, the democratic system produced weak governments that were unable to make a significant impact on domestic economic and social policy (Lebanon is a different case).

And this is the crux of the issue: democracy is no guarantee of political stability, and in more than one country we are asked to believe that strong central government is the key to stability -one of the greatest fears inside and outside China is the end of Communist Party rule; China, Japan, Russia and the South Koreans are all worried about the collapse of power in North Korea -successive US Presidents have failed to promote a democratic revolution in Saudi Arabia because they have no idea what it would produce and prefer 'the devil they know'.

But there have been successful transitions from dictatorship to democracy -in Greece, Spain and Portugal in the 1970s; in Europe after 1989 the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland have been able to make the transition; corruption however is still damaging politics in Albania, Croatia and Serbia, Roumania and Bulgaria. How democratic Russia is, is a question that many think results in a negative answer.

It is not in the interests of Saudi Arabia for Syria to be a democratic country; the more violence the greater likelihood of any strong leader being preferred to a weak parliamentary system which they don't want to see anyway. Saudi motives are rooted in domestic politics anyway, as they base their legtimate claim to rule the Holy Places on one of many versions of Islam which they continue to promote as if it were the only one.

These conflicts about power, and the spoils of power, will continue, and people will be killed, injured, raped and displaced from their homes.

Finally, it is easy to mock the USA, and judge it wanting on foreign policy. For all its faults, and the USA contains in its modern history enough paradoxes to keep us going for many years of debate, the fact is that hundreds of local officials are elected in every state, who in most other countries would be appointed without the approval of the local population. It takes time to build a democracy, and elective systems must be allowed to fail and reform themselves, before a stability of choice can emerge as a coherent replacement of violence. There is nothing unique about the Middle East that makes this impossible, but as I say if this is a genuine revolution, it has barely got started, and the next 10 years could determine what happens in the next 100.

[Prospero]

Brilliant piece of explanation Stavros.

[bishr]

Israel, your neighboring country, is a democratic country , without all the security Syrian style , but still , you can go out at 2 AM , and find the streets filled with poeple, so it's not the security that makes the difference , it's something else ............



I agree with you , you were born and raised in a non-democratic society , you became used to it because you had no other choice.....

now you can write whatever on your mind without having to be afraid that you will heresome hard knockings on your door in the middle of the night after you have wrote your TRUE opinion , doesn't it give YOU something to think about?

the only thought that came to my mind after reading your reply is that it was a perfect case in point of the mentality that is turning this world into a horrible place to live in.

you for reasons that i can't fathom presume to dictate to members of other cultures whether they r free or not! u believe that those who disagree with u and oppose the idea of bringing your style of freedom to their countries do so because they don't know any better! u even use the israel as an example to reinforce your point of view! how is a country that thrives on daily using bulldozers to wipe out the olive farms and the houses of thousands of Palestinians be used as a positive example??? how can a country that deprives the millions of people living in gaza from fuel for electricity and water to wash their dead loved ones before burying them be used as a good example??? how can u even mention israel in such a context one day after the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre??? have u ever heard of that massacre??? i sincerely hope u were not being serious! even if there was any sense in your evaluation of our level of freedom in syria, the mention of israel totally negated it.

how many more failed attempts of uncle sam exporting his model of freedom to other countries does it take to finally stop and think that world doesn't need that kind of help? i don't want u to think that i am changing the subject because i mentioned that to ask u the following:

if we r so oppressed and helpless and persecuted by our governments, why did the people of iraq resist the occupation of the USA till the last moment, till the last american occupation base was cleared? why did they sacrifice so many lives to drive the invading forces out? is it possible in any way to call what happened in iraq a victory for the USA in either the military or the cultural sense? do u call the constant killing of USA/NATO soldiers in Afghanistan by the Afghan soldiers and not Taliban members a gesture of appreciation from the general population of Afghanistan??? what does it take for this despicable self-righteousness to end??? what about libya?? haven't u seen the reports on the news of the number of times NATO ran out of bombs needed to bring freedom to freedom loving people in libya? why do u think it took six months of bombing instead of the maximum of two that NATO said it would need to make libya succumb? please take the time to check the included video although it is about libya not syria.

if syrians were as u say living in fear and loathed their government so much, why has only so few participated in this so called revolution? why after 18 months have the rebels achieved nothing on the ground? why did the USA have to ship thousands of al-qaeda members from yemen to syria via turkey??? that last part alone is in more than enough to show what's really happening!


Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
Plato

lizzy phelan-if you havent listened already please do - Truth about Libya - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Tn_wtGrng)

[bishr]

how does "Administrative detention" work in line with democracy in israel???

[Stavros]

if we r so oppressed and helpless and persecuted by our governments, why did the people of iraq resist the occupation of the USA till the last moment, till the last american occupation base was cleared? why did they sacrifice so many lives to drive the invading forces out? is it possible in any way to call what happened in iraq a victory for the USA in either the military or the cultural sense?

do u call the constant killing of USA/NATO soldiers in Afghanistan by the Afghan soldiers and not Taliban members a gesture of appreciation from the general population of Afghanistan??? what does it take for this despicable self-righteousness to end???

if syrians were as u say living in fear and loathed their government so much, why has only so few participated in this so called revolution? why after 18 months have the rebels achieved nothing on the ground? why did the USA have to ship thousands of al-qaeda members from yemen to syria via turkey??? that last part alone is in more than enough to show what's really happening!


Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
Plato



Bishr, if you are indeed familiar with the recent history of Iraq, then look beyond the notorious entry of the US and UK forces into that country in 2003 to remove its 'weapons of mass destruction', and also beyond the even more notorious activities of the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Neither side has a good record in Iraq. But ignorance of the facts will not advance your cause: as early as 2005 the formation of the National Council for the Awakening of Iraq led to the co-operation of Sunni Arabs (some of the former insurgents) with the US military to reduce violence in Iraq, so when you claim that the Iraqis fought till the last moment, till the last american occupation base was cleared...perhaps you should identify which Iraqis you are talking about.

Those attacks by Afghans on the US and British forces are relatively small if also distressing incidents, and if you are familiar with the situation in Afghanistan you will know that what you call a gesture of appreciation from the general population of Afghanistan would be the immediate replacement of Hamid Karzai with an honest man, were that possible in Afghan politics. The corruption of the Afghan govt is one of the key factors that has fuelled the resurgence of the Taliban, along with Pakistan's determination not to let India and other regional states get what they want out of this dreadful conflict. The US will be withdrawing its troops over the next 18 months, what do you think will happen then?

The opposition to the Ba'ath Party/Military rule in Syria is fragmented and poorly equipped compared to the Syrian armed forces. People are scared, yet they want change. If the situation in Syria was so good you need to explain why there is any opposition at all, only I hope you don't claim the breakdown of law and order is all down to foreign interference. When a political leadership, such as the one in Damascus, uses bombs and assassination squads to pacify its own citizens, you have to wonder on what basis they claim the right to rule.

Israel does not promote democracy in either Gaza or the West Bank, but you cannot deny that Israeli governments are democratically elected. You could have the same kind of representation as well, and it would be better than the one-party state that has failed in Syria. As for the USA, why do so many people I have met in the Middle East want a one-way ticket to California?

It isn't ignorance you need to worry about, its bad politics, on all sides.

[Jamie Michelle]

I'll take ideas from all sides. People dying every day with no end in sight.

Here's what to do: withdraw the CIA's support of al-Qaeda in attacking the Syrian government, and let the Syrian government go in peace. Problem solved.

It's amazing what good results one can obtain with a budget of zero. And it's also amazing what utter Hell one can inflict upon the world with a budget of trillions.

[yosi]

you for reasons that i can't fathom presume to dictate to members of other cultures whether they r free or not! u believe that those who disagree with u and oppose the idea of bringing your style of freedom to their countries do so because they don't know any better!

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
Plato



I don't try to dictate anything , all I am saying that you yourself enjoy this freedom of speech which you claim I try to dictate you ..........which you don't have back there in Syria....... and never had.

Ignorance ( and brain washing - and you are brain washed , my friend ) is indeed the root and stem of all evil.

[bishr]

Bishr, if you are indeed familiar with the recent history of Iraq, then look beyond the notorious entry of the US and UK forces into that country in 2003 to remove its 'weapons of mass destruction', and also beyond the even more notorious activities of the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Neither side has a good record in Iraq. But ignorance of the facts will not advance your cause: as early as 2005 the formation of the National Council for the Awakening of Iraq led to the co-operation of Sunni Arabs (some of the former insurgents) with the US military to reduce violence in Iraq, so when you claim that the Iraqis fought till the last moment, till the last american occupation base was cleared...perhaps you should identify which Iraqis you are talking about.

Those attacks by Afghans on the US and British forces are relatively small if also distressing incidents, and if you are familiar with the situation in Afghanistan you will know that what you call a gesture of appreciation from the general population of Afghanistan would be the immediate replacement of Hamid Karzai with an honest man, were that possible in Afghan politics. The corruption of the Afghan govt is one of the key factors that has fuelled the resurgence of the Taliban, along with Pakistan's determination not to let India and other regional states get what they want out of this dreadful conflict. The US will be withdrawing its troops over the next 18 months, what do you think will happen then?

The opposition to the Ba'ath Party/Military rule in Syria is fragmented and poorly equipped compared to the Syrian armed forces. People are scared, yet they want change. If the situation in Syria was so good you need to explain why there is any opposition at all, only I hope you don't claim the breakdown of law and order is all down to foreign interference. When a political leadership, such as the one in Damascus, uses bombs and assassination squads to pacify its own citizens, you have to wonder on what basis they claim the right to rule.

Israel does not promote democracy in either Gaza or the West Bank, but you cannot deny that Israeli governments are democratically elected. You could have the same kind of representation as well, and it would be better than the one-party state that has failed in Syria. As for the USA, why do so many people I have met in the Middle East want a one-way ticket to California?

It isn't ignorance you need to worry about, its bad politics, on all sides.



iraq:

excuse me but it is hard to look beyond killing 1.5 million iraqis and dumping deformation causing and cancer causing materials on the rest and causing them to remain without electricity for over 18 hours a day till now, all under the guise of looking for weapons of mass destruction that are yet to be found!

how does the formation of the so called "councils of awakening" or "sons of iraq" indicate that iraqis were co-operating with the US invading forces? correct me if i am wrong but these councils were not formed of volunteers and were mere mercenaries getting paid 15 million dollars a month as salaries by the US army to fight for them since it is cheaper that way! google the info about their salaries and also check the many reports on how tens and hundreds of them would turn on their own councels when they don't receive their salaries for a month. it is surely not hard to find people like that in a country that was devestated like iraq was! if u want me to identify which iraqis i am talking about and since u mentioned that the councils were mostly sunni, then i will list a few of the resistance groups to show u that they came from all the different religious groups in iraq:

1- the naqishbandia: sufi
2- promise day/hezbolla-iraq: shi'a
3- army of ansar al suna: sunni

and as for the continuation of the resistance, please check out the video below as one of many examples on how it continues till today, check the date of the video upload to youtube and the date in the title.

‫جيش رجال الطريقة النقشبندية قصÙ� مقر للعدو الامريكي بتاريخ 16 9 2012‬‎ - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSR_c0PfOT0)

can u give me one reason why the iraqis would not want to kill every last american soldier??? has abu-ghraib been a gesture of friendliness from the USA??? for god sakes not even puppies were spared from the brutality of the american invading forces!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mjb8-2dh9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y78T1D9JkVs&feature=related

afghanistan:

so about afghanistan, u call this week's attack that destroyed 6 fighter jet relatively small, eh??? also, u think that in Afghanistan, the taliban movement doesn't have solid roots and very widespread support??? as for what i think will happen there once the US forces admit their utter defeat there and leave is that the afghan people will continue to curse them till doom's day and that taliban will regain whatever small part of its power that it lost after that many years of battling with the US army and NATO.

syria:

so in syria the military that every male who is not a single son and is above 18 servers in is not indicative of the general direction the syrian people want to go in, but the USA funded/trained/armed militias running around bombing everything from mosques to hospitals and beheading anyone with a haircut they don't like are the true representation of what the syrian people want, right???

i never said the situation in syria was perfect and everybody was living in luxury, we r like any other country and have people who label themselves as opposition, but that doesn't give other parts of society the right to conspire against their country and facilitate its destruction!!! especially when they have no set demands or alternative policy of any kind! have they ever made a single statement about whether they are rebelling for better health or better education or better housing or better jobs or better anything???????????? your claims are completely unfounded about our leadership and are quite silly to be honest, u know exactly who trains and exports death squads, it is the same country that sent them to south america!

israel:

so to u democracy is merely about changing the name of the president every few years? what about the racial discrimination in israel? what about turning al-Aqsa mosque's yards into public parks and gardens?

[Stavros]

iraq:

excuse me but it is hard to look beyond killing 1.5 million iraqis and dumping deformation causing and cancer causing materials on the rest and causing them to remain without electricity for over 18 hours a day till now, all under the guise of looking for weapons of mass destruction that are yet to be found!

how does the formation of the so called "councils of awakening" or "sons of iraq" indicate that iraqis were co-operating with the US invading forces? correct me if i am wrong but these councils were not formed of volunteers and were mere mercenaries getting paid 15 million dollars a month as salaries by the US army to fight for them since it is cheaper that way! google the info about their salaries and also check the many reports on how tens and hundreds of them would turn on their own councels when they don't receive their salaries for a month. it is surely not hard to find people like that in a country that was devestated like iraq was! if u want me to identify which iraqis i am talking about and since u mentioned that the councils were mostly sunni, then i will list a few of the resistance groups to show u that they came from all the different religious groups in iraq:

1- the naqishbandia: sufi
2- promise day/hezbolla-iraq: shi'a
3- army of ansar al suna: sunni


can u give me one reason why the iraqis would not want to kill every last american soldier??? has abu-ghraib been a gesture of friendliness from the USA??? for god sakes not even puppies were spared from the brutality of the american invading forces!
[/URL]

afghanistan:

so about afghanistan, u call this week's attack that destroyed 6 fighter jet relatively small, eh??? also, u think that in Afghanistan, the taliban movement doesn't have solid roots and very widespread support??? as for what i think will happen there once the US forces admit their utter defeat there and leave is that the afghan people will continue to curse them till doom's day and that taliban will regain whatever small part of its power that it lost after that many years of battling with the US army and NATO.

syria:

so in syria the military that every male who is not a single son and is above 18 servers in is not indicative of the general direction the syrian people want to go in, but the USA funded/trained/armed militias running around bombing everything from mosques to hospitals and beheading anyone with a haircut they don't like are the true representation of what the syrian people want, right???

i never said the situation in syria was perfect and everybody was living in luxury, we r like any other country and have people who label themselves as opposition, but that doesn't give other parts of society the right to conspire against their country and facilitate its destruction!!! especially when they have no set demands or alternative policy of any kind! have they ever made a single statement about whether they are rebelling for better health or better education or better housing or better jobs or better anything???????????? your claims are completely unfounded about our leadership and are quite silly to be honest, u know exactly who trains and exports death squads, it is the same country that sent them to south america!

israel:

so to u democracy is merely about changing the name of the president every few years? what about the racial discrimination in israel? what about turning al-Aqsa mosque's yards into public parks and gardens?

Your passion has its weaknesses -I was opposed to regime change in Iraq along with many other people here in the UK -the demonstration in London against intervention in 2003 was one of the largest in recent years.

You are the one who refers to 'Iraqis' as if that country was united -surely the point about the National Council for the Awakening of Iraq is that it represented people -mostly Sunni Arabs- who felt threatened by the growth of Shi'a representation, whose sons were being encouraged into insurgent violence that was undermining their own position in the country. Had they been as hostile to the US as you claim, why did they take the money and change their position? It had more to do with the protection of their communities from opportunists inside and outside Iraq, protecting their land, and creating -or trying to create- a more unified Sunni body in view of any elections that were planned. It was the combination of this Council, and the Surge which signficantly reduced the violence in Iraq, which is not to undermine the grim situation which still pertains in that country.
But even the independent Iraq Body Count puts civilian deaths at between 108,824-118,910 which is a markedly different figure from your Million. The link is here:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mjb8-2dh9s)

You and everyone else is glad that Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party apparatus has been dismantled in Iraq, anyone with a knowledge of Iraq expected the place to erupt, and yes, the 'liberators' of Iraq behaved disgracefully -Abu Ghraib is one example, the British in Basra another-because like Blair and Bush they did not understand the country they were entering. There have been elections in Iraq, I don't think the electoral roll was accurate, and right now we still don't know what Iraq will look like in five or ten years time, given the difficult situation that exists in the predominantly Kurdish north.

But there is one simple fact about Iraq -[U]it was Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists who failed the people of Iraq. By 1979 Iraq had nationalised its oil industry, at a time when the oil price had quadrupled in the previous six years. Iraq could have used the revenues from oil to develop the best state oil company in the Middle East; it could have used oil revenue to invest in agriculture and industry, to create the conditions for economic prosperity which engage people in business regardless of religious differences. He did none of those things, instead, he used the money to line the pockets of his relatives and friends, to acquire the instruments of death and torture to harass and murder political opponents, above all, he engaged in two wars which he could not win and which bankrupted what should have been one of the richest countries in the world.

I had an interesting talk with an Iraqi exile in the Gulf a few years ago -look around, he said, this is the legacy of Zayed. What is Saddam's legacy for us? Destruction. Sheikh Zayed was no democrat, all the Gulf states are family businesses; Oman is not that different, the oddities of Qaboos being entirely his own -but which of these states has used oil revenue to develop a modern state, and which lies in ruins?

Iraq with its rich heritage of ancient civilisations, ought to have been one of the great tourist destinations in the world, instead tourists go to Dubai. Work that one out!

The situation in Afghanistan that you describe is profoundly more complex; and has more to do with local politics than with the NATO forces. It is a sad fact that the Afghan security forces killing their US and British trainers do not match the slaughter that has been going on in Afghanistan for decades. The Taiban you refer to is no longer a single body, taking directions from Mullah Omar. The group has split with moderate Taliban -so-called- who want to stop fighting and build the country with what they call an 'Islamic Government'; those Taliban who are in effect being led by Pakistan in order to maintain the violence and prevent a 'solution' that does not include Pakistan; and other Taliban fighters who don't want to be told what to do by anyone. The NATO intervention in Afghanistan, like the previous intervention by the USSR aggaravated existing divisions within Afghanistan, and by militarising age-old grievances with more sophisticated weaponry than the average Afghan had possessed before, it is a grim fact that the death toll is so shockingly high.
But so too is the level of corruption in central government -and if you can't see how crucial it is for the average Afghan to have confidence in its government, then you can't see a way out of this situation when the NATO forces leave.

As in Iraq, a thoroughly corrupt government undermines faith in politics, so people take their energies elsewhere, into religion, into anything that will make money -growing poppies, for example- and until they get a government that works for the benefit of the country, the Afghans will decline to be involved in nationwide politics, and do their own thing.

Thus, in Syria, you find the same record, of decades of corruption at the heart of the country; decades of under-achievement in what in 1914 was with Egypt the richest and most developed country in the Middle East. Syrians do talk about their health and education systems, they do talk about jobs -but for decades they have had to talk about it in whispers because of the spies that Hafez al-Asad created, many of them your own neighbours. Syrians do not want to live in a society where you have to pay for a service three times over -once to the service provider, once to the 'official' without whom you cannot get to the provider, and once to the Wastah who can walk into the office of official to grease his palm on your behalf.

Four decades of dictatorship and the country is in ruins. Not much of a record to defend, is it? And for you to suggest it is all the cause of the US is bizarre, as Syria has been a mystery to successive American administrations for all this time, the one country with which it has never had a dialogue.

Again, you need to make a distinction between Israel and the Occupied Territories. There was a radical change in Israeli politics in the 1970s, the country politically has never been the same as it was when the old Labour Party was in power, but that is the price Israel has paid for the demographic changes that have favoured the nationalist parties in the last four decades. There are elections in Israel, and you can criticise the list system they use which produces coalition governments with tiny parties holding the balance of power; but the elections do take place, politicians do lose power. Israel has a lot of problems, environmental degradation, immigration problems, it is not immune to them, but you need to understand that resentment is a poisonous emotion that does not produce good politics.

Fundamentally, dictatorship is the problem. It can often start out as a military response to political disorder, but then becomes a substitute for democray, because democracy is messy, it doesn't always produce a winner, it involves lots of people all claiming to have the right solution; but dictatorship can only produce order for a short term before it eats into the economy, giving privileges to people who don't deserve them. You can't expect any of the Arab Countries being convulsed by change to change quickly, old habits, old alliances remain important; but change cannot be stopped, and you can either try to stop it, as Bashar al-Asad is doing, or try to influence it for the better.

[yosi]

iraq:

excuse me but it is hard to look beyond killing 1.5 million iraqis and dumping deformation causing and cancer causing materials on the rest


israel:

what about turning al-Aqsa mosque's yards into public parks and gardens?


these are perfect 2 examples of how you were constantly brainwashed with lies, can you prove these with facts?

1.5 million Iraqis killed? how did you get this number?

Al-Aqsa mosque's yards turned into parks and gardens? do you have ny pics to prove it? or is it just a "fact" that you heard?

[hippifried]

what about turning al-Aqsa mosque's yards into public parks and gardens?

What about just bulldozing the Mount & turning it into a parking lot?

If the brats can't play nice, take away the toy.

[Prospero]

There are many entirely spurious videos drifting around on the web alleging all manner of dastardly Israeli plots to turn the al-Aqsa Mosque into this or that and one about "melting" the dome of the rock. All spurious. All bearing no resemblance to the truth.

One major troubel with the Web is it is open to abuse by those of dubious motives who wish to feed prejudice, create anger and hatred. Especially on such contentious issue as Arab-Israeli relations. (But also on other flash point issues. The so called feature film about Mohammed for instance - trickled out onto the Internet with the clear intent of inflaming anger and sparking the very response it achieved.)

[bishr]

these are perfect 2 examples of how you were constantly brainwashed with lies, can you prove these with facts?

1.5 million Iraqis killed? how did you get this number?

Al-Aqsa mosque's yards turned into parks and gardens? do you have ny pics to prove it? or is it just a "fact" that you heard?

iraq:

current:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

2008:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/30/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130

al-aqsa:

http://www.imemc.org/article/63985

note:
i am not here trying get sympathy by spreading lies, i am only trying to present the truth, and if i seem angry most of the time, it is because of the difficulty to control rage when dealing with the subject of the ongoing catastrophe, it is like a train wreck taking place over the course of years instead of minutes.

[Prospero]

That link on al-aqsa is a perfect example of the sort of dubious story i was referring to. I don't find it credible.

[bishr]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1208/S00147/al-quds-warns-of-israeli-intent-to-control-al-aqsa-mosque.htm

[Prospero]

The last link was a website run by Hamas... hardly aneutral source.

[bishr]

Your passion has its weaknesses -I was opposed to regime change in Iraq along with many other people here in the UK -the demonstration in London against intervention in 2003 was one of the largest in recent years.

You are the one who refers to 'Iraqis' as if that country was united -surely the point about the National Council for the Awakening of Iraq is that it represented people -mostly Sunni Arabs- who felt threatened by the growth of Shi'a representation, whose sons were being encouraged into insurgent violence that was undermining their own position in the country. Had they been as hostile to the US as you claim, why did they take the money and change their position? It had more to do with the protection of their communities from opportunists inside and outside Iraq, protecting their land, and creating -or trying to create- a more unified Sunni body in view of any elections that were planned. It was the combination of this Council, and the Surge which signficantly reduced the violence in Iraq, which is not to undermine the grim situation which still pertains in that country.
But even the independent Iraq Body Count puts civilian deaths at between 108,824-118,910 which is a markedly different figure from your Million. The link is here:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

You and everyone else is glad that Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party apparatus has been dismantled in Iraq, anyone with a knowledge of Iraq expected the place to erupt, and yes, the 'liberators' of Iraq behaved disgracefully -Abu Ghraib is one example, the British in Basra another-because like Blair and Bush they did not understand the country they were entering. There have been elections in Iraq, I don't think the electoral roll was accurate, and right now we still don't know what Iraq will look like in five or ten years time, given the difficult situation that exists in the predominantly Kurdish north.

But there is one simple fact about Iraq -it was Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists who failed the people of Iraq. By 1979 Iraq had nationalised its oil industry, at a time when the oil price had quadrupled in the previous six years. Iraq could have used the revenues from oil to develop the best state oil company in the Middle East; it could have used oil revenue to invest in agriculture and industry, to create the conditions for economic prosperity which engage people in business regardless of religious differences. He did none of those things, instead, he used the money to line the pockets of his relatives and friends, to acquire the instruments of death and torture to harass and murder political opponents, above all, he engaged in two wars which he could not win and which bankrupted what should have been one of the richest countries in the world.

I had an interesting talk with an Iraqi exile in the Gulf a few years ago -look around, he said, this is the legacy of Zayed. What is Saddam's legacy for us? Destruction. Sheikh Zayed was no democrat, all the Gulf states are family businesses; Oman is not that different, the oddities of Qaboos being entirely his own -but which of these states has used oil revenue to develop a modern state, and which lies in ruins?

Iraq with its rich heritage of ancient civilisations, ought to have been one of the great tourist destinations in the world, instead tourists go to Dubai. Work that one out!

The situation in Afghanistan that you describe is profoundly more complex; and has more to do with local politics than with the NATO forces. It is a sad fact that the Afghan security forces killing their US and British trainers do not match the slaughter that has been going on in Afghanistan for decades. The Taiban you refer to is no longer a single body, taking directions from Mullah Omar. The group has split with moderate Taliban -so-called- who want to stop fighting and build the country with what they call an 'Islamic Government'; those Taliban who are in effect being led by Pakistan in order to maintain the violence and prevent a 'solution' that does not include Pakistan; and other Taliban fighters who don't want to be told what to do by anyone. The NATO intervention in Afghanistan, like the previous intervention by the USSR aggaravated existing divisions within Afghanistan, and by militarising age-old grievances with more sophisticated weaponry than the average Afghan had possessed before, it is a grim fact that the death toll is so shockingly high.
But so too is the level of corruption in central government -and if you can't see how crucial it is for the average Afghan to have confidence in its government, then you can't see a way out of this situation when the NATO forces leave.

As in Iraq, a thoroughly corrupt government undermines faith in politics, so people take their energies elsewhere, into religion, into anything that will make money -growing poppies, for example- and until they get a government that works for the benefit of the country, the Afghans will decline to be involved in nationwide politics, and do their own thing.

Thus, in Syria, you find the same record, of decades of corruption at the heart of the country; decades of under-achievement in what in 1914 was with Egypt the richest and most developed country in the Middle East. Syrians do talk about their health and education systems, they do talk about jobs -but for decades they have had to talk about it in whispers because of the spies that Hafez al-Asad created, many of them your own neighbours. Syrians do not want to live in a society where you have to pay for a service three times over -once to the service provider, once to the 'official' without whom you cannot get to the provider, and once to the Wastah who can walk into the office of official to grease his palm on your behalf.

Four decades of dictatorship and the country is in ruins. Not much of a record to defend, is it? And for you to suggest it is all the cause of the US is bizarre, as Syria has been a mystery to successive American administrations for all this time, the one country with which it has never had a dialogue.

Again, you need to make a distinction between Israel and the Occupied Territories. There was a radical change in Israeli politics in the 1970s, the country politically has never been the same as it was when the old Labour Party was in power, but that is the price Israel has paid for the demographic changes that have favoured the nationalist parties in the last four decades. There are elections in Israel, and you can criticise the list system they use which produces coalition governments with tiny parties holding the balance of power; but the elections do take place, politicians do lose power. Israel has a lot of problems, environmental degradation, immigration problems, it is not immune to them, but you need to understand that resentment is a poisonous emotion that does not produce good politics.

Fundamentally, dictatorship is the problem. It can often start out as a military response to political disorder, but then becomes a substitute for democray, because democracy is messy, it doesn't always produce a winner, it involves lots of people all claiming to have the right solution; but dictatorship can only produce order for a short term before it eats into the economy, giving privileges to people who don't deserve them. You can't expect any of the Arab Countries being convulsed by change to change quickly, old habits, old alliances remain important; but change cannot be stopped, and you can either try to stop it, as Bashar al-Asad is doing, or try to influence it for the better.

you insist on twisting all the facts! i really don't know what to say!

how does the fact that the "sons of iraq" were fighting an enemy that came with the USA invasion of their country make that invasion or the resulting situation today a good thing??? were these suicide bombers detonating bombs in marketplaces every few days back when president saddam was in power? why wouldn't they want to take money to fight the extremists? it is not like the have any sympathy for them.

ah poor blair and bush, they didn't understand the country they were entering, they thought it was a country were committing atrocities is highly appreciated, they were entering a country to find and disable the weapons of mass destruction that has not and will not ever be found!!!

also, the division of iraq into regions isn't the direct result of constitution Paul Bremer's imposed!!! no, it is in the best interest of iraq to be divided according to religion and ethnicity!

also, all arab countries should become whores to the west and reap the rewards of being a tourism destination! the never ending sanctions imposed on iraq had nothing to do with it not being a tourism destination at all!

current:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

2008:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/...48857920080130

how did u figure that the syria was in ruins for four decades??? this is the kind of statements that are not backed by facts! had this not been a porn forum, i would have surely asked one of my american friends who live here to describe syria from their own perspective! u couldn't be more wrong.

yes we do have administrative corruption, but that is neither a cover for starting a revolution nor can it in any way be remedied by one especially when the so called revolutionists don't have a reform program of any sort! since president bashar al assad took over, corruption has been reduced a lot as well as the ability of people in important public positions to abuse their authority. corruption is a global problem, it is not in any way unique to syria.

i thank president hafez al assad from the bottom for making syria a country where everyone knew their limits and where robbery or homicide was virtually unheard of.

syria is an important element in the so-called resistance axis and no thanks we don't want a dialog with the murderers trying to complete their task of enslaving the entire planet. they can have all the dialog they want with traitorous governments of the gulf region, they can have a dialog about how to run over multiple protestors instead of one at a time with SUVs.

president bashar al assad is leading the change not fighting it, we have a new constitution, new media law, new election law, new law for political parties, members of the opposition in key offices in the government (the opposition that doesn't think NATO intervention is something to aspire to), lifting of the emergency martial law, and many many other reforms.

the only influencing for the better regarding the armed gangs is to have the brave forces of the legendary syrian arab army deal with them.

[bishr]

The last link was a website run by Hamas... hardly aneutral source.

hhhhhhh give me your phone number and i will get netanyahu to call u and tell u it is real.

google it in hebrew or in arabic if u can, it has been on news channels for days now.

http://www.assafir.com/Windows/PrintSection.aspx?EditionId=2234&MulhakId=4250&reftype=menu&ref=lm

or better u can do like Morpheus in the matrix says:

You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

[yosi]

iraq:

current:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

2008:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/30/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130

al-aqsa:

http://www.imemc.org/article/63985

note:
i am not here trying get sympathy by spreading lies, i am only trying to present the truth, and if i seem angry most of the time, it is because of the difficulty to control rage when dealing with the subject of the ongoing catastrophe, it is like a train wreck taking place over the course of years instead of minutes.

al-aqsa

All made up. He simply lies, such decision never happened

http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/how-arabs-arrange-spilling-of-jewish.html

[bishr]

al-aqsa

All made up. He simply lies, such decision never happened

http://myrightword.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/how-arabs-arrange-spilling-of-jewish.html

yes the arabs are launching airstrikes to spill the blood of poor israelis just like the one today. u r beyond ridiculous. i am sure all the other facts i mentioned were also made up according to that site! it is a credible site as long as u say it is!

[Stavros]

you insist on twisting all the facts! i really don't know what to say!

how does the fact that the "sons of iraq" were fighting an enemy that came with the USA invasion of their country make that invasion or the resulting situation today a good thing??? were these suicide bombers detonating bombs in marketplaces every few days back when president saddam was in power? why wouldn't they want to take money to fight the extremists? it is not like the have any sympathy for them.

ah poor blair and bush, they didn't understand the country they were entering, they thought it was a country were committing atrocities is highly appreciated, they were entering a country to find and disable the weapons of mass destruction that has not and will not ever be found!!!

also, the division of iraq into regions isn't the direct result of constitution Paul Bremer's imposed!!! no, it is in the best interest of iraq to be divided according to religion and ethnicity!

also, all arab countries should become whores to the west and reap the rewards of being a tourism destination! the never ending sanctions imposed on iraq had nothing to do with it not being a tourism destination at all!

current:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

2008:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/...48857920080130

how did u figure that the syria was in ruins for four decades??? this is the kind of statements that are not backed by facts! had this not been a porn forum, i would have surely asked one of my american friends who live here to describe syria from their own perspective! u couldn't be more wrong.

yes we do have administrative corruption, but that is neither a cover for starting a revolution nor can it in any way be remedied by one especially when the so called revolutionists don't have a reform program of any sort! since president bashar al assad took over, corruption has been reduced a lot as well as the ability of people in important public positions to abuse their authority. corruption is a global problem, it is not in any way unique to syria.

i thank president hafez al assad from the bottom for making syria a country where everyone knew their limits and where robbery or homicide was virtually unheard of.

syria is an important element in the so-called resistance axis and no thanks we don't want a dialog with the murderers trying to complete their task of enslaving the entire planet. they can have all the dialog they want with traitorous governments of the gulf region, they can have a dialog about how to run over multiple protestors instead of one at a time with SUVs.

president bashar al assad is leading the change not fighting it, we have a new constitution, new media law, new election law, new law for political parties, members of the opposition in key offices in the government (the opposition that doesn't think NATO intervention is something to aspire to), lifting of the emergency martial law, and many many other reforms.

the only influencing for the better regarding the armed gangs is to have the brave forces of the legendary syrian arab army deal with them.

Bishr, I did not say that the invasion of Iraq for the purposes of regime change was a good thing, I actually said that I opposed it. The point I was making is that after the worst excesses of the insurgency, there were people who changed their position because the insurgency was not working, it was not reducing violence, it was not improving security, it was not going to send the US and the British troops away -because they could not be beaten. You have not actually said in what way Iraq benefited from Saddam Hussein, because you can't -my point about tourism was that had Iraq not fallen foul of dictatorship it would have enjoyed the kind of normal life they lead, for example, in Jordan, where tourism is an important part of the economy -for good reason if you have ever been to Jerash or Petra. Millions of people would love to have visited Iraq but were unable to because of that violent crook called Saddam. Perhaps you could tell me what happened to all those billions of $$ Saddam and his chums collected from oil revenue.

I did not say Syria has been in ruins for decades, but it is now, its political system is broken beyond repair -for you to say i thank president hafez al assad from the bottom for making syria a country where everyone knew their limits and where robbery or homicide was virtually unheard of is just an extreme form of defence, if you do not want the challenges posed by democracy, which is not going to make Syria anyone's whore, but offer the people who live there the right to choose their own government, then support dictatorship but dont cry the night they knock on your door and take you away to an unmarked building somewhere in the city. Hafez al-Asad's family connections in Latakia include criminal activities there, and if you don't think the old lion was a lawbreaker when he crushed the rebellion in Hama in 1982 your definition of criminal activity must be elastic.

The situation in Syria is desperate, we know that. You won't find many or any posters here who think it is a good thing or who dont know that outside parties are involved -what I think most people want to see is a just form of politics in Syria, because the old way of doing things does not work. One by one the dictators are going, and it won't be long before the Saudi family business can no longer buy off the citizens of that country. Because change happens, whether you like it or not. It is a pity that you don't see far enough ahead to work for a more open, honest and just society in Syria.

[yosi]

president bashar al assad is leading the change not fighting it, we have a new constitution, new media law, new election law, new law for political parties, members of the opposition in key offices in the government (the opposition that doesn't think NATO intervention is something to aspire to), lifting of the emergency martial law, and many many other reforms.





i live in syria now
.

everything is clear to me now , if I was living in Syria now , I would also write what a great leader bashar el asad is............ I want to stay alive ...............

[Prospero]

Bishr... could you state clearly for us to understand what your position is regarding President Assad. Are you a Government supporter?

How do you respond to reports that members of the iranian Revolutionary Guard are now fighting alongside Government forces in Syria to put down the insurgency.

Do you accept reports that Government bomber plans attacked a petrol station a couple of days ago killing more than 30 people?

Please make your position clear for us.

[yosi]

Bishr... could you state clearly for us to understand what your position is regarding President Assad. Are you a Government supporter?

How do you respond to reports that members of the iranian Revolutionary Guard are now fighting alongside Government forces in Syria to put down the insurgency.

Do you accept reports that Government bomber plans attacked a petrol station a couple of days ago killing more than 30 people?

Please make your position clear for us.

if Bishr will write anything against it , it will be the last time he visits here.............

[Prospero]

You might be right... though I am sure his friends have bigger fish to fry (and lots more children to slaughter)

[hanan_hayek]

LOL!

thank u for banning the "bishr" account from posting, you couldn't have helped more in advancing the cause of revealing how ignorant, intolarant, and close minded the people claiming to be pioneers of freedom really are!

we have a saying in arabic, it relates to people adamant about spreading misinformation and hiding facts, it roughly translates to:

you can't hide the sun by raising a sieve to it.

[Prospero]

Hanan... has he been banned? Not to my knowledge

[loveboof]

Hanan... has he been banned? Not to my knowledge

I'm guessing that 'Hanan' is Bishr. Someone will sort it out if it was not intended...

[Prospero]

Well apart from his abrasive and offensive remarks about Clinton, his contributions here have been interesting.

[yosi]

if bishr WAS banned it's a pity.

( wasn't it supposed to be written "banned!!" under his nickname? )

[Stavros]

In the intervening weeks since the last posts, there have been cross-border incidents between Syria and Turkey that for some have raised the alarms about a deepening of the crisis. The Syrians have not exactly apologised for the attack which killed five people, a Turkish woman and her four children, in the village of Akcakale. The problem, identified by angry Turks was the use of the border area by Syrian rebels, acting with permission from the Turkish government. That might not be much of a justification for the Syrian attack, it is standard fare for border wars, but it is the innocents who live there who suffer.

Taking sides in this conflict is, I think, a dangerous tactic: the Rebels have been executing members of the armed forces they have seized, in some cases people who are just opposed to their attempt to overthrow the government; the government of Syria has continued its futile attempt to impose a military solution on the rebel movements, allegedly destroying part of the historic souk of Aleppo, one of those few ancient souks which has been preserved as it was for centuries (even if the goods on sale are no longer always local); while there are credible reports that junior officers and privates in the armed forces are afraid to defect because their families have been threatened. This, it is said, is what gives the world the illusion that the government is still in control and that the rebel movements are not supported across the country. Unfortunately, they are supported by enough people to keep this conflict going. Even with the claim today (Monday 8th October) that Saudi Arabia and Qatar will reduce the volume of arms that have been sent to the rebels -something which Turkey has not said it will do- the military solution seems for the time being destined to be 'the only game in town', which to me signals failure on all fronts.

Into this difficult situation, enter Mitt Romney with a crass and potentially catastophic proposition: to arm the rebels 'who share our values'. If he can find any who in terms the Republican Party understand, 'share our values', it might help if he spelled out what that means. If he means biblical prophecies, homophobic, and anti-gun control policies -I hesitate to call them values- then he won't have to look very far for supporters.

What ought to make alarm bells ring, is the absence of any kind of political thinking here. Instead of proposing a political settlement -and there will be a political settlement, if not this year or next year, in 10 years or however long this conflict lasts- Romney is proposing to make the military situation even more volatile and, crucially, uncontrollable. How it is done is not clear, but if we can accept there will not be troops on the ground, I imagine supporters of this policy in Syria, the Middle East and anywhere else, can already here the bells of the cash registers ringing, as US dollars flow in to make some people very rich indeed -and prolong the fighting for as long as they can.

In Afghanistan, fighting the USSR was the key, supporting the Mujahideen a means to an end; yet as we know, the Mujahideen had an agenda of their own, and ultimately, it was the USA that paid a terrible price for the monster that was born in Afghanistan.

In this conflict, the tendency to see it as a means of weakening Iran exposes Romney's, and many Americans obsession with Iran; yes, Iran has meddled in regional affairs and attacked the USA indirectly; but the danger with Romney's position, to escalate and deepen the conflict, lies with Turkey.

Here, the paranoia in Ankara has little to do with Iran, and everything to do with the potential for a long term push for autonomy by the Kurds that threatens the integrity of the Turkish state. The creation of an autonomous Kurdish mini-state in Iraq, one incidentally that has become prosperous and seeks to get even richer by awarding its own oil contracts regardless of what the govt in Baghdad wants, has encouraged the Syrian Kurds, who also live in the northern areas, to seek their own, free from bombing raids and interference from Damascus. But if a 'no-fly zone' was established and policed by NATO forces operating out of Turkey (itself a problematic scenario), the snowball effect would not be welcome in Turkey if its own Kurdish citizens on the borders with Syria and Iraq wanted autonomy for themselves. It would be a toxic issue in Turkey, while an attempt by the Syrians to re-claim the previously autonomous province of Alexandretta which was annexed by the Turks in 1938, would only widen the conflict.

Whichever way you look at it, if Romney doesn't have a political solution to propose, he should keep his mouth shut. But then the only reason any politician should speak on this issue is to come up with an intelligent political agenda, because the killing isn't working.

[Ben]

Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and the truth about chemical weapons and who may or may not have them

Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad was brutal but never used chemical arms. And do you know which was the first army to use gas in the Middle East?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syria-bashar-alassad-and-the-truth-about-chemical-weapons-and-who-may-or-may-not-have-them-8393539.html

[tragicomedy]

Do nothing but offer humanitarian relief. This is an internal dispute with no good side/bad side.

[tragicomedy]

Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and the truth about chemical weapons and who may or may not have them

Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad was brutal but never used chemical arms. And do you know which was the first army to use gas in the Middle East?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syria-bashar-alassad-and-the-truth-about-chemical-weapons-and-who-may-or-may-not-have-them-8393539.html



What a rambling piece. Why does he think it is relevant that the Brits used gas on the Turks in 1917?

[LibertyHarkness]

nuke them all . :)

[Ben]

'Ground being prepared for Syria intervention' - ex-US Chief of Staff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1V7LqNcVNA

[hippifried]

nuke them all . :)

There you go. Make the whole region glow in the dark for the next 1,000 years. I know I'm tired of all the whining.

[LibertyHarkness]

hehe glow in the dark religion could be a new fad :) mwuahahaha

[greyman]

What to do? Other than offer humanitarian aid, nothing.

The record of western involvement in the Arab world has hardly been stellar. Every time the west allows its own interests to dictate policy, it makes the situation worse. From the post WW1 carve up of the region by Britain and France, the creation of Israel as an outpost of western imperialism, the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Iran (Persian rather than Arab) by the USA/UK, the invasion of Iraq on clearly contrived grounds, the list goes on but the result has nearly always been the same....further conflict.

[Stavros]

On the one hand we can be grateful that Syria is not a computer game to be played by cretins with no interest in the country anyway; on the other hand the situation is getting far worse as there is now a flurry of activity outside Syria which may yet see external military intervention justified in order to prevent Syria from using its stocks of Chemical weapons, against whomseover that might be. If troops on the ground are not used, the theory is that air strikes against the storage sites might be, either way it is yet another example of the escalation of a conflict which could have been reigned in some time ago.

I don't know what practical benefit will emerge from the talks currently under way with the Russians, but the opposition continues to fail to erode the 'unity' of the armed forces; but many junior ranks in the armed forces are under threat of execution from the high command if they don't obey orders; weapons sponsored by Qatar and Saudi Arabia continue to enter the country; Turkey continues to complain about violations of its sovereignty and the refugee problem; Hezbollah in Lebanon continues to support the Asad regime on its borders with occasional incursions against the rebels; thus the worst case scenario, in which external interventions -all for their own agendas- prolong the conflict remain in place.

But if there is some agreement with the Russians that enables Asad to leave, and for a transitional government to emerge then at least it would appear something positive is happening -but in the longer term the Russian concern is not really with Asad anyway, so unless they can guarantee a secure place for their Navy they may not be willing to venture onto a road whose destination is unknown. The Russians have been sore for years at becoming a junior player to the US since 1991, and while their record in the Middle East has been poor since 1948 (they were the first state to recognise Israel) Putin is not the kind of leader to let Syria go without making sure it at least remains a headache for whoever steps in if the Russians are forced out. This is but one example of how external intervention prolongs conflict.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaida-says-killed-51-syrian-soldiers-iraq-191147475.html

Al-Qaida says it killed 51 Syrian soldiers in Iraq

By ADAM SCHRECK and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA | Associated Press – 5 hrs ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — Al-Qaida's Iraq branch claimed responsibility Monday for the deaths of 51 Syrian soldiers and nine Iraqis killed in a well-planned assault in western Iraq last week, intensifying concerns that the terror group is coordinating with Islamist rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Iraqi authorities say fighters and weapons are moving increasingly more freely across the long and porous desert border between the two countries as Syrian rebels try to consolidate control on their side of the frontier.
The issue also plays into the conflict between Iraq's Shiite-led government and Sunni insurgents, particularly al-Qaida.
Iraq officially has not taken sides in the Syria civil war, though Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned in an interview with The Associated Press this month that a victory for rebels would create a new extremist haven and spark sectarian wars in his own country and in Lebanon.
Al-Qaida in Iraq and Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra ultimately aim to create a border sanctuary they can both exploit that could house command centers and training camps, according to two Iraqi military intelligence officials.
They estimate there are about 750 Jabhat al-Nusra militants — including foreign fighters from other Arab countries — among approximately 2,000 anti-Assad fighters who control long stretches of borderlands on the Syrian side. The officials said the Syrian militants are increasingly crossing into Iraq to meet their al-Qaida counterparts.
The Iraqi officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose security operations to reporters.
When asked about coordination between the two groups, Ali al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, suggested there is no difference between al-Qaida in Iraq and Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra.
"We are very concerned with what is going on the Syrian side of the border. Whatever the names, al-Qaida is one organization and in Iraq this organization has been working to ignite sectarian strife by attacking both the Sunnis and the Shiites," he said.
Iraqi officials say rebels now control the Syrian side of two desert border crossings with Iraq — at al-Qaim and Rabiya. Al-Moussawi called that a great source of concern.
The Syrian troops killed on Iraqi soil March 4 had sought refuge in northern Iraq during recent clashes that ended with the rebels taking over the Rabiya border crossing along Iraq's northern province of Ninevah. The troops were being escorted back to Syria through another border crossing further south when they were ambushed.
It was the first time Syrian soldiers were known to be in Iraq since Syria's civil war began.
Joseph Holliday, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, described the attack as the clearest example yet of spillover from the Syrian conflict into Iraq.
"The ambush is indicative of broader cross-border cooperation between Sunni militant groups seeking to disrupt Assad regime security forces on both sides of the border," he said in a recent report.
Iraqi officials say they allowed the Syrians in on humanitarian grounds.
In a statement posted on militant websites, the Islamic State of Iraq — al-Qaida's wing in Iraq — said its fighters were monitoring the movements of the soldiers as Iraqi authorities worked to transfer them secretly back across the border.
"We prepared for this raid after the blessed operations carried out by our brothers in Syria," the statement read, linking its cause directly to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad's regime.
The attack started with militants detonating explosive charges on military escort vehicles assigned to protect trucks carrying the Syrian soldiers, the group said. After that, "the fighters launched an attack from two directions using light- and medium-range weapons as well as rocket-propelled grenades," said al-Qaida in Iraq.
"Within less than half an hour, the whole convoy ... was annihilated," the group said.
The account of the attack matches descriptions that Iraqi officials provided to the AP in the immediate aftermath of the assault.
Iraqi officials have launched a manhunt for the attackers, but no arrests have been made.
The Syrian conflict's sectarian divisions run deep, with predominantly Sunni rebels fighting a regime dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Rebel groups have increasingly embraced radical Islamic ideologies, and some of their greatest battlefield successes have been carried out by Jabhat al-Nusra.
Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri last year urged Iraqi insurgents to support the fight to topple Syria's Assad, whose Alawite sect is a branch of Shiite Islam. Al-Qaida in Iraq considers Shiites to be heretics.
Assad's regime is backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran, which has been building ties with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad in recent years.
American officials have expressed concern about regional spillover.
The spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Frank Finver, condemned last week's attack and said officials were aware of al-Qaida's claim of responsibility. He said it is "a reminder of the formidable challenges Iraq continues to face regarding its security."
"The U.S. and Iraq have long acknowledged that defeating (al-Qaida in Iraq) requires a sustained effort. We remain firmly committed to supporting the (Iraqi government's) efforts to bring greater stability to its people," Finver said.
Iraq's government, meanwhile, is being challenged by weekly protests that began in December from Sunni Muslims angry over perceived discrimination.
The demonstrations have been largely peaceful, and most Iraqi Sunnis do not voice support for al-Qaida. Many in their ranks also have concerns about Syria's violence spilling across the border.
Mahmoud al-Sumaidaie, the deputy head of Iraq's Sunni Endowment, which oversees the sect's holy sites, described last week's raid as worrying.
"There is a long border and there are tribal connections and shared beliefs between Iraq and Syria," he said in an interview Monday. "While we feel pain for what is going on in Syria, we hope that this does not spread to Iraq. ... We hope there will be no Iraqi interference in Syria's affairs, and no Syrian interference in Iraq's affairs."
___
Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Ben Hubbard in Beirut contributed.

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/assad-says-syria-wipe-those-behind-mosque-attack-134704502.html

Assad says Syria will wipe out mosque attackers

By Dominic Evans | Reuters – 1 hr 26 mins ago

By Dominic Evans
BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Friday to purge Syria of "extremist forces" he accused of assassinating a leading Sunni Muslim cleric who backed his two-year battle against rebels and protesters.
Assad made the pledge in a message of condolence over the death of Mohammed al-Buti, who was killed along with dozens of worshippers by an explosion in a Damascus mosque on Thursday.
State media put the death toll from the blast at 49, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors violence across the country said 52 people died and the final figure was likely to be more than 60.
The mass killing inside a place of worship shocked many Syrians, long accustomed to the daily bloodshed of a conflict which has killed 70,000 people, displaced millions of others and devastated whole districts of Syria's ancient cities.
Authorities announced a day of mourning on Saturday, when a funeral is expected to be held for Buti, who often delivered his sermons in the historic Umayyad Mosque.
"Your blood ... and that of all Syrian martyrs will not be shed in vain," Assad said. "We will adhere to your thinking to eliminate their darkness and extremism until we purge our country of them."
The mosque bombing took place in the same Mazraa district of central Damascus where a car bomb killed more than 60 people one month ago, another sign that Syria's civil war had penetrated to the heart of Assad's capital.
Assad's artillery positions on the northern edge of Damascus pounded the rebel-held southwestern towns of Derayya and Moadamiya on Friday and a Damascus resident said the smell of gunpowder hung over the center of the city.
The 47-year-old president has deployed air strikes, artillery barrages and Scud-type missiles to hit rebel fighters who control swathes of eastern and northern Syria and have challenged his hold over most of the country's main cities.
His government and the rebels accused each other of using a chemical weapon in clashes near the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday in which 26 people were killed.
The United Nations has promised to investigate the incident, though a U.S. official has said it increasingly appeared a chemical weapon was not used.
U.N. CONDEMNS ATTACK
The United Nations Security Council "condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in a mosque in Damascus", but added that any steps to combat terrorism must comply with international law on human rights and refugees.
Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, himself a former preacher at the Umayyad Mosque, said the killing of a Muslim scholar in a religious sanctuary was "a crime in every sense of the word".
"We could not agree with him politically, and believed he was wrong to stand with the rulers, but his killing opens up the gates to an evil that only God knows," he said in a statement.
Buti was a Sunni Muslim like most Syrians and the great majority of Syrian rebels, who were angered by his support for a president from the country's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
In one of his televised speeches, Buti described those fighting to topple Assad as 'scum'. The frail, 84-year-old preacher also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the rebellion.
State television rebroadcast what it called Buti's last sermon at the Umayyad Mosque a week ago, in which he said Syria was under attack from the United States, Europe and al Qaeda, which he described as a Western creation.
But Alkhatib said there had been signs Buti was questioning his support for Assad and suggested he may have been killed by authorities "who feared that if he took a courageous decision it could overturn the whole balance (of power)".
Opposition activists have frequently blamed Syrian authorities in the immediate aftermath of major bombings in Damascus, many of which have subsequently been claimed by the Nusra Front - a rebel group which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Z7ox6nMnXCHolswSxrW0tQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzM0O2NyPTE7Y3c9NDUwO2R4PTA7ZH k9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD0zMzQ7cT04NTt3PTQ1MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2013-03-22T145220Z_3_CBRE92L12BK00_RTROPTP_2_SYRIA-CRISIS.JPG
Reuters/Reuters - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad heads a cabinet meeting in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on February 12, 2013. REUTERS/SANA/Handout

http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2013/03/21/hi-mohammed-al-buti-8col.jpg
High-level cleric Mohammed al-Buti was killed in a blast at a mosque in central Damascus on Thursday according to Syria's state television. (SANA/Reuters, handout)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/21/wrd-syria-sunni-muslim-preacher.html

[buttslinger]

If you consider the ultimate weapon in 1913, just imagine what the ultimate weapon will be in 2113.

[Dino Velvet]

This picture is about as confusing and chaotic as the events taking place. Guess they couldn't fit a pope hat on him while making him look more like Chupacabra? Do Jihadis wear the white hats now?

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/_DSdO3G3Gmy4qZWP2aukdQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0xMDI0O3E9Nzk7dz0xNT M0/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/386bc8b64462390a2d0f6a706700836a.jpg

[Prospero]

A report on the Channel 4 news here in London yesterday showed how children of ten and eleven are now working in desperate conditions in hospitals to help the wounded and dying because there are now so few medial staff left. It is truly deeply depressing.

[Dino Velvet]

A report on the Channel 4 news here in London yesterday showed how children of ten and eleven are now working in desperate conditions in hospitals to help the wounded and dying because there are now so few medial staff left. It is truly deeply depressing.

I saw a man on TV who lost 6 children in one day. If I were the father I might strap a bomb to my chest and hold someone accountable too. Does it matter which side he was in support of???

[Prospero]

And so the madness deepens there. i have friends from other parts of the Arab world who were elated when the "Arab Spring" began to spread to the streets of Damascus. None envisaged the carnage that would ensue.

[Dino Velvet]

And so the madness deepens there. i have friends from other parts of the Arab world who were elated when the "Arab Spring" began to spread to the streets of Damascus. None envisaged the carnage that would ensue.

I've learned a lot from you and Stavros being over there. Big thanks for not making me have the same dirt in the tread of my boots. I'd rather read here sitting in my tighty-whiteys than over there running and dodging gunfire. I'm no ingrate and thanks again.

I might not know shit but that Arab Spring always had a hint of a stinky rose to me. If I was right I guess I just guessed good, I guess.

[Stavros]

I have linked an article (below) on 'the illusions' of the west, which argues that it is folly to think that arming 'the rebels' will deliver the coup de grace to the Asad regime and enable a transitional government to emerge as its replacement. If anything, the article doesn't go far enough in trying to delineate just how fragmented the opposition is, with some 'groups' in effect being little more than armed gangs robbing and looting on a daily basis, with the inevitable targeting of the antiquities of Palmyra and other famous sites in Syria, much as the historic sites in Iraq were, and continue to be raided. This is turning out on one level to be a Sunna -vs-Shi'a conflict with Saudi Arabia and Qatar determined to roll back the tide of Shi'a and Iranian influence that has dominated Iraqi politics since regime change in 2003 and to some extent regional politics since 1979 -Blair, Bush and Cheney were well aware of the boost to Iran that regime change in Baghdad would have, perhaps this is one bloody chapter in a longer war that was factored in years ago. The recent appeal by the Kurds to Turkey for a resolution to the guerilla war (which had petered out anyway with Ocalan's imprisonment) suggests more game-playing on the northern side. What does Turkey want?
Asad now has only his life to lose, he owns nothing else; he gambled on crushing the rebels, and he lost, taking decades of dictatorship with him down the drain. At some point the army must surely put their long term survival first and move to get rid of him, in an attempt to pretend that things have changed, and then present themselves as crucial players in any re-organisation of politics in Syria -but can even this be done in the face of such widespread collapse? And what hope will there be for the refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon that they can return home? Assuming the homes are still there. Bleak indeed.

http://www.gloria-center.org/2013/03/in-syria-western-illusions-lead-to-ill-advised-action/

[Prospero]

A good summation. The prospects in the region, even once Assad goes, are bleak with the Jihadist element of the opposition being the most coherent. A civil war following the present confilct is very likely. And as you say Stavros this is a Sunni-Shia argument at heart with a very distinct possibility of the fight spreading to Lebanon (some of the Jihadists have already vowed to cross the border and "deal" with Hizbollah once Assad is overthrown) The Lebanese are already crossing the border and fighting each other in Syria. How long before that fight is brought back home.

[Stavros]

The Presidential elections in Iran in June may also add some toxic elements to the dramas, as some are arguing that the Supreme Guardian Council, having got fed up with Ahmadinejad are determined not to make the same mistake twice, and make sure they not only have an obedient President, but that he wins the election too. As this could pit the supporters of Ahmadinejad AND the general population, both of whom think the elections were stolen, an 'Iranian Spring' or 'summer' could be on the cards...though I think it would be an urban rather than a nationwide protest.

[Prospero]

That would be interesting .... and worrying. Personally as well. Im due to head out to the region soon on a big project.

[Ben]

Middle Eastern Regime Crosses A Red Line - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r62kglv53o)

[Dino Velvet]

Hassan Nasrallah chimes in.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67337000/jpg/_67337668_67337661.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22360351


Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah in Syria pledge

The head of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has declared that Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals.
Hassan Nasrallah said Syria's opposition was too weak to bring down Bashar al-Assad's regime militarily.
He was speaking in an address broadcast on Hezbollah's TV station al-Manar.
BBC Arab affairs analyst Sebastian Usher says the speech tacitly confirmed the group has been involved in fighting in neighbouring Syria.
The Syrian opposition has long claimed the Iranian-backed Shia movement has been supplying fighters to help Mr Assad, a key Hezbollah backer.
"A large number [of rebels] were preparing to capture villages inhabited by Lebanese... so it was normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army," Mr Nasrallah was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
The Hezbollah leader said it had never hidden its martyrs, but that reports that large numbers of its fighters had been killed were lies.
He also warned that if a key Shia shrine south of Damascus - that named after Sayida Zeinab, a granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad - were to be destroyed, it would spark revenge that could get out of control.
"If the shrine is destroyed things will get out of control," he said.
Mr Nasrallah tried to reassure his domestic audience that - above all - Hezbollah wanted to avoid the Syrian war coming to Lebanon, adds our correspondent, but many there may find little to comfort them in this latest show of defiance.
The announcement came hours after 14 people were killed by a powerful explosion in Damascus, and a day after Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a car bomb attack in the Syrian capital.
Government forces and rebels have been fighting in and around Damascus for months, but neither have gained the upper hand.
More than 70,000 people have been killed since fighting between Syrian forces and rebels erupted in March 2011.

[Ben]

Israel strikes Syria as thousands flee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rljryOdRTFc

[Stavros]

A few months ago I assumed Asad would be ousted from within, that the military would decide they could survive without him, with his removal implying something has changed; there could even be elections, though how one holds free and fair elections in Syria in its current state I don't know. Although that is still possible, it appears that the rebel groups have not made the significant advances that would force real change in the regime in Damascus, if anything Damascus may feel emboldened by the lack of the success of a divided opposition. Syria retains Russian support, it has Iranian support and on the Lebanese border areas the support of Hezbollah. The 'red line' that was allegedly crossed with the use of chemical weapons has not amounted to much because the evidence chemical weapons have been used is inconclusive -could this be why Israel has been attacking targets inside Syria -an additional attempt by external parties to force the end of the Asad government? We have to make allowances for the unpredictable, especially in the Middle East, but right now it looks like the balance of power is still controlled in Damascus: changes in Iran next month may or may not make a difference, the growth of the refugee situation in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan might need addressing -but there are still refugees from the 1948 and 1967 Wars so a 'refugee crisis' doesn't necessarily mean a resolution to it will be worked out soon. This conflict could go on for years.

[Ben]

A WELCOME PAUSE IN THE CRAZINESS OVER SYRIA: (http://ericmargolis.com/2013/05/a-welcome-pause-in-the-craziness-over-syria/)

http://ericmargolis.com/2013/05/a-welcome-pause-in-the-craziness-over-syria/

[fivekatz]

The entire region is far beyond the west pulling strings to change geo-politics to their favor as revolutions in the region have repeatedly shown.

Now if there is mass genocide the US would be negligent not to use its power to end it. But beyond that any attempts at nation building are not only a waste of time but treasure and focus as well.

The best policy toward the region would be to render oil a less valuable product and let all the players both the producers and the rest of region work it out for themselves IMHO.

The US obsession since WWII of managing the politics of the entire globe is wearing thin and serves little purpose beyond protecting the interests of the plutocrats.

[Dino Velvet]

I guess these are the guys wearing the white hats.

Rebel Eats Heart of Syrian Soldier. - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFfnxK-YGGQ)

http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2011/12/28/14/50/of8e0.St.4.jpghttp://bookhaven.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/osama.jpg

[Stavros]

Maybe he was just hungry. Animal heart is eaten in many cuisines. Nevertheless, I don't think human heart is going to become a popular dish...

[Dino Velvet]

Maybe he was just hungry. Animal heart is eaten in many cuisines. Nevertheless, I don't think human heart is going to become a popular dish...

Hungry for some Alawite or Shia Tartare. Eat a few Tatars while yer at it.

[Ben]

Despite Horrific Repression, the U.S. Should Stay Out of Syria:

http://www.fpif.org/articles/despite_horrific_repression_the_us_should_stay_out _of_syria

[sukumvit boy]

Good ones Dino!
But I think the Tartars are more likely to eat us.

Thanks to Hollywood I know the guys wearing the white hats.
Although sometimes they ain't white and don't wear a hat.:confused:

[Dino Velvet]

One person's rebel is another person's terrorist.

http://news.yahoo.com/islamist-rebels-execute-11-syrian-soldiers-massacres-video-081841223.html


Video shows Islamist rebels executing 11 Syrian soldiers

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FZN6924R0WZ__x92.x6.GA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/reuters/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/)Reuters – 57 mins ago


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A video published on Thursday showed fighters of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Syria executing 11 men they accused of taking part in massacres by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
The film is believed to be from eastern Deir al-Zor province and dates from some time in 2012, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group.
The Observatory's head, Rami Abdelrahman, said the Nusra Front has recently been releasing several videos of their past operations. He said the man seen executing the prisoners in the video - a Nusra commander - had been killed in March 2013 in battles with local tribes in the province.
The footage shows the commander, his face covered in a black balaclava, shooting each prisoner in the back of the head as they kneeled, blindfolded and lined up in a row in the sand.
"The sharia court for the eastern region in Deir al-Zor has sentenced to death these apostate soldiers that committed massacres against our brothers and families in Syria," the executioner said on the video.
Islamist militants with black flags shouted "God is great" as each man was shot. The executioner returned to some victims, firing more bullets into them to make sure they were dead.
Videos of executions and torture have become increasingly common in Syria, where more than 94,000 people have been killed in a conflict now in its third year, according to the British-based Observatory, which has a network of activists in Syria.
Such videos posted online are hard to verify due to government restrictions on access for independent media.
The Nusra video is the second video to be published in the past two days showing executions by fighters who say they are from al Qaeda-linked groups.
A video issued on Wednesday from the northern province of Raqqa, which is controlled by Islamist rebels, showed three blindfolded men sitting on the curb of a central roundabout before being shot in the head with a pistol.
A man speaking in the video said the executions were revenge for killings in the coastal town of Banias two weeks ago. Photos and videos of the alleged Banias massacre showed dozens of mutilated bodies, many of them children, lying in the streets.
(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Alistair Lyon)


http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/USAzR.ZXiDmrz5htnFnkaw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zMzA7cT03OTt3PTQ1MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2013-05-16T160929Z_1_CBRE94F18VX00_RTROPTP_2_SIN600R.JPG
Three rebels, two of them carrying Jabhat al-Nussra flags, stand behind
a row of 11 kneeling men prior to executing them in what is said to be
Deir al-Zor, in this still frame from video obtained from a social media website
on May 16, 2013. Fighters of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Syria executed
11 men they accused of taking part in massacres by President Bashar al-Assad's
forces, a video published on Thursday showed. Social Media Website/Handout via Reuters Tv

http://www.obit-mag.com/media/image/110502_FW_osamaEX.jpg
"What's up with the Angels? You think they fire Scioscia?"

[Prospero]

The gut response to this guy eating a dead soldier's lung (not a heart) is of course deep horror and revulsion. As it was reportedly among the commanders of these rebels who have vowed that this man will be punished.

But war almost always prompts atrocities - from all sides. It is suggested that the solider whose body he defiled had on him photographs of women being raped, tortured and murdered by Syrian army forces. Such acts of extreme violence on the living are surely worse than disrespecting dead bodies.

All armies have committed acts of wanton cruelty. It doesn't make it right, but this terrible conflict is bringing forth the very worst of human nature from all sides. As did wars from the beginning of recorded history.

[Dino Velvet]

this terrible conflict is bringing forth the very worst of human nature from all sides.

Yes it is. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving support to either side. I'll always feel bad for those caught in the middle trying to survive day to day. Too many unpredictable factors for us to even dip our toes into the mess.

[Dino Velvet]

Sunni Al-Qaeda "Freedom Fighters" now having problems with each other.

http://news.yahoo.com/insight-syrias-nusra-front-eclipsed-iraq-based-al-135153068.html


Insight: Syria's Nusra Front eclipsed by Iraq-based al Qaeda

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FZN6924R0WZ__x92.x6.GA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/reuters/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/)By Mariam Karouny | Reuters – 1 hr 40 mins ago


By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The most feared and effective rebel group battling President Bashar al-Assad, the Islamist Nusra Front, is being eclipsed by a more radical jihadi force whose aims go far beyond overthrowing the Syrian leader.
Al Qaeda's Iraq-based wing, which nurtured Nusra in the early stages of the rebellion against Assad, has moved in and sidelined the organization, Nusra sources and other rebels say.
Al Qaeda in Iraq includes thousands of foreign fighters whose ultimate goal is not toppling Assad but the anti-Western jihad of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri - a shift which could extend Syria's conflict well beyond any political accord between Assad and his foes. The fighting has already cost 90,000 lives.
The break-up of an important part of Syria's opposition, already splintered into hundreds of armed groups, worsens the dilemma faced by the West as it debates whether intervention to support the rebels will result in arms being placed in the hands of hostile Islamist militants. And if the West were to intervene, it may now be under pressure to attack al Qaeda opposition forces rather than Assad.
"Nusra is now two Nusras. One that is pursuing al Qaeda's agenda of a greater Islamic nation, and another that is Syrian with a national agenda to help us fight Assad," said a senior rebel commander in Syria who has close ties to the Nusra Front.
"It is disintegrating from within."
Others said that Nusra's Syrian contingent has already effectively collapsed, with its leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani keeping a low profile and his fighters drifting off to join other rebel groups.
Nusra fighters have claimed responsibility for the deadliest bombings of the two-year-old Syrian conflict and their brigades have led some of the most successful rebel offensives against Assad's forces.
The group was formally designated a terrorist organization by the United States six months ago, a step which Washington said was vindicated by a declaration in April that it was merging with al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq. Washington now says Nusra is little more than an al Qaeda front.
A U.S. official said on Friday: "We continue to be concerned about the influence of extremist groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq. This is why we have been coordinating and discussing with partners the need to continue to strengthen the moderate opposition and channel any assistance through the moderate opposition, including the Supreme Military Council."
The U.S. moves to isolate Nusra have drawn criticism from Syrian rebels and opposition leaders, reflecting the fact that Nusra was able to win grudging support beyond its core Islamist base because of its fighters' discipline and battlefield successes.
Many Syrians turned a blind eye to the growing presence of foreign and Arab jihadi fighters in its ranks because Nusra fighters cooperated with other rebel brigades, worked to curb looting and provided help for displaced Syrians.
By contrast the head of the Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has moved into northern Syria to take tighter control over al Qaeda operations in the country, has few admirers among Syrian fighters.
They see him as a brutal figure with little time for the intricacies of Syria's struggle, focused less on toppling Assad and more on imposing a radical Islamist rule including religious courts and public executions. Many accuse him privately of hijacking their revolution.
"We reject his presence here on the ground. He should take his fighters and go back to Iraq," said a Nusra source who is close to Nusra leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani. "We are not happy with the way he operates nor with his methods."
BAGHDADI STEPS IN
Baghdadi's announcement in early April that his Islamic State of Iraq was formally merging with Nusra to form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant clearly took the Syrian Nusra rebels by surprise.
Golani said he had not been consulted and, while swearing allegiance to al Qaeda's Zawahri, insisted his fighters would continue to operate under their own Nusra Front banner.
"Golani pledged religious allegiance to Zawahri, but not political or military (allegiance)," said the Nusra source close to Golani. "It was an attempt by Golani to keep his distance from Baghdadi."
But the move did not help. Soon after, in a direct challenge to Golani, Baghdadi traveled from Iraq to a town in Syria's Aleppo province, where he was joined by Arab and foreign jihadis who had formerly fought for Golani's Nusra.
Rebels say the rift continued to widen and the foreign and Arab wing is now operating formally under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, while many Syrian Nusra fighters have dispersed to join other Islamist brigades.
"The situation has changed a lot. Baghdadi's men are working but Nusra is not working formally anymore," said another Nusra source. "Those with Baghdadi are the fiercest fighters of all. The brothers are trying to avoid them as much as possible."
The source, and other Syrian Nusra fighters who spoke to Reuters, said they feared Baghdadi's supporters would alienate Syrians in the same way that their hardline agenda turned Iraqis against them, paving the way for U.S.-backed Sahwa militias to turn the tide against al Qaeda in western Iraq in 2007.
"A TRAP FOR GOLANI"
Nusra sources said they were waiting for Zawahri to settle the issue, hoping he would call on Baghdadi to return to Iraq.
"We have two choices now. Either Zawahri announces the separation of Syria's Nusra from Iraq's Islamic State, or he orders Baghdadi to stay (in Syria) and if this happen then its a disaster," said one Nusra source. "Baghdadi has harmed the Nusra Front. He caused great damage and broke up the front."
But the Syrian rebel commander, who is from a Western-backed rebel group, said that Baghdadi already had Zawahri's blessing when he moved in.
"They set a trap for Golani," he said. "They wanted a foot inside (Syria) and helping Golani at the start with men and arms provided that, until they became stronger so they took over."
In a telling video published this week, masked fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant executed three men they said were officers from Assad's Alawite minority sect in the eastern town of Raqqa.
After the shootings there were only muted chants of support for the fighters and activists said that small protests broke out at night condemning the execution and calling on the fighters to fight Assad instead of executing people.
Several Nusra fighters said they feared that if Baghdadi's influence continued to grow, his ultra-radical agenda would see the Iraqi Sahwa phenomenon played out again in Syria.
"We as Syrians do not want a repeat of that. The Baghdadi men have declared the Nusra fighters who left him... as infidels. We still reject his state, if Zawahri does not put an end to this then the situation will get worse," one said.
The senior rebel commander said he even expected the growing clout of Baghdadi's fighters would finally end the West's reluctance to intervene militarily in Syria - not against Assad, but his hardline enemies.
"We expect soon drone attacks, like Yemen, to begin against al Qaeda members," he said.
GOLANI GOES TO GROUND
Meanwhile Golani, who was formally declared a terrorist by Washington on Thursday, is now in hiding. "He has gone to ground until the problem is solved," said a source close to Golani.
Even though few people even know what Golani looks like, and fewer still have met him, he has gained popularity among Syrians and songs have been written to celebrate his exploits.
His real name is not known even to some of his fighters and many people long suspected that he was a fictitious fighter created to give a Syrian 'front' to the Iraqi al Qaeda.
Sources say he is Syrian and in his 40s, roughly the same age as Baghdadi. He is currently in rural Damascus province, they say, accompanied by some of his remaining fighters.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi, helped fund Nusra fighters, who also had financial support from private donors in Arab Gulf countries. The Iraqi wing is financed from al Qaeda's global support network.
One Nusra fighter said he believed Baghdadi held a personal grudge against Golani because of his standing in Syria.
Golani, a radical Sunni Muslim, won popularity in Syria even among some Christians, according to the Nusra fighter. "Baghdadi did not like this," the fighter said.
"Baghdadi and the (al Qaeda) leadership consider the Muslim Brotherhood, the Free Syrian Army and other factions including Christians as infidels and when they saw Golani was on good terms with them they were not happy."
"That is why he announced the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant without any consultation with Golani, and he is in charge to operate in his old failed way."
(Editing by Dominic Evans, Giles Elgood and Peter Graff)

[Stavros]

Is Syria turning into a new Afghanistan? The EU this week at the prompting of Britain and France agreed to lift a long-standing arms embargo on Syria, which has raised the prospect of arms being shipped to rebels without knowing who will be in possession of them in five or ten years time, or next week for that matter. The dynamics have been shaped by the fractured opposition and its inability to consolidate territorial gains while constantly weakening the Government, whose armed forces are proving to be more effective than was expected over this length of time. The Russian support, and the support of Iran and Hezbollah has raised the prospect of the conflict for Syria becoming a proxy war on two levels: the Saudi/Qatar backed conflict with Iran read as a Sunna-Shi'a conflict; and the freedom-loving west against Iran and those nasty Russians.

Israel sent a delegation to Moscow to warn of the consequences of sophisticated weapons systems (specifically the S-300 missile and radar anti-aircraft system) surviving a change of regime in Syria, because it would limit the effectiveness of the Israeli jets in Middle Eastern airspace, which they own, in a manner of speaking. Who in Syria can actually operate the S-300 is not known, probably nobody, unless he speaks with a Russian accent. Does this mean if Israel tries to or does destroy the batteries of such weapons, if delivered, if they know where they are, Israel and Russia could attack each other?

The recipe for a deepening of a conflict with no visible resolution is made more rather than less likely by the EU decision, which comes in advance of the Geneva conference where, one would have thought, it could have been used as a bargaining chip. What isn't clear to me is whether or not William Hague was acting with the French as part of an EU initiative, or whether it is the one means whereby the USA can add its salt to the dish without being seen to, even though it is widely known that it has military advisers in Turkey and Jordan, and special forces guys are probably showing rebels how to fire a gun in the suburbs of Damascus.

The EU is gambling with a coalition of opposition groups that cannot agree with each other on tactics or end-games; Hezbollah in Lebanon is gambling on being on the winning side at the end, as is Iran, but other than a rickety compromise all round, what does victory look like in Syria? If the government 'wins', does it recognise that dictatorship doesn't work, and begin a transition to return Syria to parliamentary democracy? If the militants 'win' does it mean they recognise democracy doesn't suit them and replace one dictatorship with another?

The refugee crisis, which in Afghanistan displaced over a million in Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and to a lesser extent in India, continues to cause concern, not least to Jordan. Israel, needless to say, has not taken any. Neither have we.

[Prospero]

Assad reported on the news just now to have "taken delivery" of the first shipment of advanced missiles from the Russians. Israel said to be "very concerned' but earlier remarks by Netanyahu that they would destroy such shipments have now been denied. with Israeli officials reportedly in Moscow for talks with the Russians to try and stop such shipments.

The conflict is now in serious overspill into parts of Lebanon. Hizbollah declaring their full support, militarily, for Assad.

As Stavros notes US involvement in this conflict, via special forces, is already pretty certain.

After the EU decision how long before there will 'boots o the ground" there? It gets uglier by the day.

With Saudi Arabia and Qatar already funding the rebels this could very easily become a much wider conflagration.

Will the election in Iran make a difference? Unlikely - as the council of religious leaders (the Guardian Council) headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei have already ruled out Rafsanjani from the ballot together with Ahmadinejad's annointed successor and key figures from the green revolt.

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.breitbart.com/big-peace/2013/06/02/rand-criticizes-mccain

Rand Bashes McCain: US 'Will Be Allied with Al Qaeda'



On Friday night, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), speaking at the Reagan President Library, bashed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for McCain’s visit to Syria and encouragement of US involvement in the country’s civil war. “I’m very worried about getting involved in a new war in Syria,” Paul stated. “People say, ‘Assad is such a bad guy.’ He is. But on the other side we have al Qaeda and now Nusra. They say there are some pro-Western people and we’re going to vet them. Well, apparently we’ve got a Senator over there who got his picture taken with some kidnappers, so I don’t know how good a job we’re going to do vetting those who are going to get the arms.”



Paul is an advocate of isolationism with regard to Syria, while McCain has stated that the United States should establish a no-fly zone to get started in Syria. “There’s two ironies you have to overcome if you want to get involved in a war in Syria,” Paul stated. “The first irony is you will be allied with al Qaeda. The second irony is most of the Christians are on the other side, so you may be arming Islamic rebels who may well be killing Christians. Does that make Assad a good person? No. I don’t think there are any good people in this war, and there are some tragically innocent people whoa re going to be caught in the middle. But I just don’t know that arming one side is going to make the tragedy any less.”


http://cdn.breitbart.com/mediaserver/Breitbart/Big-Government/2013/Congress/Senate%20Republicans/Rand-Paul-filibuster.png

[Rusty Eldora]

We missed our opportunity to get involved back 1.5 to 2 years ago. At that time there was a moderate opposition group that if in power would be reasonably approaching western standards and ties to us as well as the EU.

However, they have all been slaughtered, the rebels now make the brotherhood seem to be liberal, and who wants the current despot regime.

[Stavros]

We missed our opportunity to get involved back 1.5 to 2 years ago. At that time there was a moderate opposition group that if in power would be reasonably approaching western standards and ties to us as well as the EU.

However, they have all been slaughtered, the rebels now make the brotherhood seem to be liberal, and who wants the current despot regime.

When I see you write 'We missed our opportunity to get involved' I shudder.
There is a documentary on the Iraq War which began on BBC2 last week, in which Dick Cheney says 'You gotta work with what you got. Anyone was better than Saddam', and Tony Blair: 'I took the view that we needed to remake the Middle East'. That Cheney thought Saddam worse than Osama bin Laden suggests tunnel vision and a pre-conceived plan; in Blair's case it is pure, destructive arrogance. Neither men took the view that the people who actually live in the Middle East should be asked: their fate was to be decided as a 'Revolution from Above' imposed on them from Washington and London.
Outsiders have been trying to change Afghanistan since the fall of the monarchy in 1973; the USSR tried to change Afghan society but the west and an 'Islamic International' intervened to prevent it, not because they wanted Afghanistan to change, they just didn't like the USSR; 40 years on from 1973 NATO and the UN are (still) trying to change Afghan society, as if permanent war was the right condition in which to do it.
Would you have asked the Syrians a few years ago for permission to intervene and change their government? In 1919 Woodrow Wilson sent the King-Crane Commission to the region and it reported that the Arabs wanted to choose their own government. The French were having none of it and after defeating the Arabs at Maysaloun in 1920 ordered Feisal, the Hashemite who was to have become head of state, to get lost. When the General in charge, Henri Gouraud arrived in Damascus, it is alleged he rested his boot on the tomb of Crusader hero, Salah ad-Din and shouted 'We're back!'.
Something tells me that 'we' have made enough mistakes in the Middle East to learn not to get involved in the internal politics. Are we really so good at this that the region cannot change without us for the better? John McCain is trying to expose a weakness in Obama's position, as if Iraq never happened; and in terms of where Iraq is now, externally manufactured regime change was not exactly a model solution to the problems of dictatorship.

[Dino Velvet]

John McCain is trying to expose a weakness in Obama's position, as if Iraq never happened; and in terms of where Iraq is now, externally manufactured regime change was not exactly a model solution to the problems of dictatorship.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/02/john-mccain-syria-assad-upper-hand

McCain accuses White House of idling while Assad gains 'upper hand' in Syria

A week after meeting Syrian rebels, Republican senator says strife could spread throughout region unless US acts


The Republican senator John McCain (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/johnmccain) has sharpened his criticism of White House policy on Syria (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/syria), accusing the Obama administration (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-administration) of sitting idly by while President Bashar al-Assad (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bashar-al-assad) gains the upper hand in the country's civil war.
In the wake of a secret visit to Syria last week, McCain, an influential foreign policy voice within the GOP, redoubled his pressure on the Obama administration to intervene in the conflict, claiming that the longer the US waited and watched the more the situation was unraveling.
"Thanks to increased weapons, thanks to Hezbollah fighters, thanks to extremist Shia coming in from Iraq, the Russians pouring weapons in, the Iranian revolutionary Guards, we are seeing unfortunately a battlefield situation where Bashar Assad now has the upper hand," he said.
Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, McCain presented the state of play on the ground as "tragic" and said it was occurring "while we sit by and watch".
McCain, who suffered a bruising defeat by Barack Obama (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barack-obama) in the 2008 presidential election, has become a thorn in the side of the US president over foreign policy. He has been the most vocal Republican advocate of intervention in Syria, calling for a no-fly zone to be established over parts of the country, to provide cover for rebel insurgency groups.
The Obama administration has been hesitant, fearful that US forces could become sucked into the conflict just at the time that they are attempting to withdraw from Afghanistan. There is also concern that among the rebel groups there are extremist Sunni influences aligned to al-Qaida – concern that McCain has dismissed. He told Face the Nation that in his view the opposition rebels were "very tough – they're battle hardened. They're very dedicated. They are not al-Qaida; they are not extremists."
The senator for Arizona was scathing about the argument that Assad could be allowed to fall from power as an inevitable result of the unrest that has erupted over the past two years: "Anyone that believes that Bashar Assad is going to go to a conference in Geneva when he is prevailing on the battlefield, it's just ludicrous to assume that."
Another reason for the Obama administration's caution has been fears that the Assad regime has the military capability to bring down US fighter jets and cause significant casualties. Jack Reed, a leading Democratic member of the US Senate armed services committee, told CBS that a no-fly zone would not work. He said it would fail to "effectively deter the Assad regime – they can use artillery, they can use helicopter gunships."

But McCain countered that the safe zone could be established by striking Syrian government runways as well as other sites used by Assad's forces. The objective, he said could be achieved "from a distance, we don't have to risk our pilots".
As politicians continued to squabble over the appropriate response to the deteriorating situation in Syria, the family of an American woman absorbed the shocking news that she had been killed by Assad loyalists in the country (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/31/us-woman-dies-syria-nicole-mansfield). Nicole Mansfield, 33, a Muslim convert, had been in a car that had come under Syrian government attack, alongside a British man, Ali Almanasfi, who also died.
Mansfield's family initially indicated they believed that she had been actively fighting with opposition forces. But over the weekend her daughter, Triana Mansfield, posted a message on Facebook that said she now believed her mother had been forced to stay in the country by the Syrian government and had been killed as a publicity stunt because she was American.
Triana wrote that she wanted her mother's body brought back to the US: "I just want her home, so we can bury her the way she wanted to be buried."


https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFwaV7Qujls7EFiTo7boN1D4s_jgFQB 4y8-2mEy_WbJ2TsSEQZgAhttps://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTwJb_jGNoJz0s9D7UMBYAJ3yFRkSgD n1wysiugw61ENvfKqDOhttp://i1.wp.com/nsnbc.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mccain-jihad.jpg

Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, nor Russia did this.

http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/436/861/436861554_1280.jpg

[Dino Velvet]

Anybody follow what happened in Qusayr? Hezbollah doing the heavy lifting here against the "rebels" we support.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324069104578529620749572106.html?r u=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

In Qusayr, Signs of Holy War

By SAM DAGHER (http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=SAM+DAGHER&bylinesearch=true) QUSAYR, Syria—A day after it fell to forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, the remains of this onetime Syrian rebel stronghold spoke of a battle as deep in sectarian wrath as it was in destructive power.


In a landscape of crumbling buildings, empty tank shells and shards of glass and rubble, looting was widespread Thursday. Locals and people who appeared to be pro-Assad soldiers and paramilitants hauled away furniture, electronics and cars toward the city of Homs, to the north, and in the direction of Lebanon, some 10 miles to the south.
What little order prevailed here appeared to be maintained by young fighters from Hezbollah—the Iran-backed Lebanese group that entered Syria to fight alongside government forces in the monthlong ground siege and bombardment that ultimately drove rebels from this strategic town Wednesday.
A four-hour walk in Qusayr revealed the freshest marks of a war that is inflaming Sunnis and Shiites across the region.
Rebels fighting here appeared to be under the sway of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Sunni militia that is linked to al Qaeda: Notices plastered on war-damaged mosques praised the group's defense of Qusayr. In the main Christian church, scenes of Christ's crucifixion, seen by many Muslims as blasphemous, had been ripped from paintings and altarpieces.
On Thursday, by contrast, Shiite religious chants blared from some of the Hezbollah vehicles roaming Qusayr. Graffiti praising holy Shiite figures believed to be persecuted by rival Sunnis more than 1,300 years ago was scrawled on buildings stormed by Hezbollah fighters, who played a leading role in planning and executing the Qusayr offensive.


"Eliminating the terrorist gangs that are bleeding the nation and country is definitely worth our sacrifices," said one Hezbollah member, the leader of a squad of fighters in Qusayr. Dozens of group members were killed here, judging by funeral announcements by the group's media arm. The lives of these fighters, the squad leader said, are a small price to pay to counter the threat he said Sunni extremists pose to Syria and Lebanon.
That echoed statements by Hezbollah leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, who has justified his involvement in Syria by saying President Assad's opponents are a threat to the survival of his group and his Shiite constituency. The Syrian regime, dominated by the Shiite-linked Alawite minority, has long been a conduit of arms and logistical support for Hezbollah from their common ally, Iran.
Hezbollah fighters had remained largely out of the spotlight when pro-regime television channels rushed to Qusayr on Wednesday to broadcast images of the regime's victory, with government fighters shown celebrating under newly hoisted Syrian flags.
But on Thursday, dozens of Hezbollah members in military fatigues similar to those worn by Syrian forces patrolled on foot and in SUVs. Most of the Lebanese fighters, who appeared to be in their late teens and 20s, tied yellow and green ribbons to their uniforms and rifles to distinguish themselves from their Syrian allies. Some tied red bandannas to their foreheads in an expression of Shiite fervor.
Moving along streets and alleyways littered with severed power lines and the rubble of buildings,the Hezbollah fighters often squared off against looters.
"Shame on you—don't you know this is someone else's property," the Hezbollah squad leader said to a man in a car-parts shop.
"They are just a few parts for my tractor," the man pleaded.
"Put them back and get the hell out of here," the Hezbollah commander shouted. The man meekly walked away.
Other Hezbollah members watched as locals, as well as uniformed men they identified as belonging to the regime's myriad security apparatuses and loyalist paramilitary groups, crammed pickup trucks and minibuses with appliances and furnishings from homes and shops.


Cars and trucks apparently belonging to Qusayr residents, and filled with more loot, were pulled behind vehicles using tow lines. A tow truck hauled off another car.
"Just to be clear, we have nothing to do with this. Hezbollah does not steal," said a fighter from the group. A few moments later, a man sped past on a motorcycle, a flat-screen television set balanced between his legs and the handlebars.
Many of the Hezbollah fighters praised the rebels' defense of Qusayr, saying they had set up four tiers of defenses, involving sand berms, booby traps and ambushes.
Some of the most intricate defenses were set up next to St. Elias, the town's main church. A section of St. Elias's wall appears to have been knocked down by a tank. Holes scarred the facade, dome and bell tower. The building's now-empty shell was littered with debris and defaced by anti-Assad graffiti.
Before fighting nearly emptied Qusayr of residents, the predominantly Sunni city of 60,000 people had a Christian minority estimated to number 10,000 people. Most of the Christians fled in February 2012 after Islamist fighters battled with several Christian families who supported the regime.
A Homs-based official with the United Nations Children's Fund, or Unicef, said about 6,400 residents fled Qusayr since the start of May and settled in camps in the nearby town of Hasyah.
About 1,000 rebels, activists and injured casualties evacuated Qusayr early Wednesday to Bweyda, a nearby village to the north, activists said. This exit took place after Syrian opposition leader George Sabra called Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and asked him to intervene, according to Hezbollah supporters and people close to Mr. Jumblatt's political party. Mr. Jumblatt coordinated the safe passage with Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, these people said.
No such deal was made, countered Louay Almokdad, a coordinator for the main rebel faction the Free Syrian Army. Mr. Almokdad said rebels retreated Wednesday because of the intensity of shelling on Qusayr's center. He said their retreat was "one phase in the guerrilla war" over the area.
"We have not struck any deal with Hezbollah," he said. "Killers do not deserve to be negotiated with."
—Nour Malas in Istanbul and Rima Abushakra in Beirut contributed to this article. Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8jtp-tQ9zEc/UBRLJDxVBfI/AAAAAAAAGQM/gC0p8aJ0XhI/s1600/syria_map.jpg

[Stavros]

I was one of those who thought the 'power of the people' would be too much for Asad and that he would not survive. The horrible truth is that Asad has survived, the army is still in power, and the opposition is as fractious and divided as it always has been in Syria. It is not dissimilar to Saddam Hussein's survival after Desert Storm/Gulf War 1991 except that Syria is more fluid and Asad has less control territorially than Saddam, although the creation of an autonomous Kurdish-controlled region in the north of Iraq was a significant weakening of Saddam's power. In addition, nobody liked Saddam enough to help him whereas Iran and Russia are crucial to Asad and the Army's survival. I don't see any advance here, the rebels will continue to fight the government and the government will be merciless in its attacks against the rebels; with the assistance of Hezbollah in the border regions.
As has been pointed out before, this could become a proxy war between the 'west' and Iran as well as the Sunna-Shi'a conflict promoted by Saudi Arabia and Iran. John McCain wants to bounce the US into closer intervention because the rebels are losing or at least, not gaining any significant victories, as they did in Libya when taking control of the eastern region around Benghazi. It isn't just the violence that is appalling, so too is the refugee crisis in Jordan and Turkey, while the Austrian component of the UN Peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights has withdrawn opening up a potential flashpoint there.
No advance, no solutions. Grim. Is the conference still going ahead in Geneva this month?

[Prospero]

This conflict could easily spin out of control and deepen into a far, far wider conflict. McCain's input is not helpful.

What would victory mean for either side at this point? For Assad a continuation of his tyranny in a land full, in the future, of deeply simmering discontent and anger. Thousands already dead. Millions displaced. Long term peace. Not an easy prospect.

If the "rebels' win a civil war in all probabllity - with the original anti-Government forces facing the growing numbers of Al-Queda inspired Jihadists.

No peace in prospect.

But if either side get further arms - and Assad already has Russian and iranian help - the conflict will spills Syria's borders more profoundly, Lebanon is on the brink. Israel may act if more deadly arms are sent to Damascus. The Gulf States are involved - and have their long running and ongoing territorial arguments with iran. Iraq is splintered along sectarian lines - and killngs are on the rise again. Jordan is unstable. Turkey is offering sanctuary to the rebels - who raid across the border. Bahrain only quelled its own Shia insurgency two years back with armed help from the Saudi Arabians and UAE. A regional war with the US and Russia as offshore antagonists is in prospect.

This has turned into a proxy war with many factions - the US and the West helping the sunni insurgency (with their proxies Saudi Arabia and Qatar funding the "rebels") and the Russians and Iran helping the Assad Government (with Hezbollah now fighting alongside the pro-Assad forces). It has ancient roots - the split between Sunni and Shia. scores even more ancient that the old ones raked over after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

[Stavros]

As you say, what does Asad win if he wins? More dictatorship. It hasn't worked for 40 years, it isn't going to work for another 40. Even if as I once thought, the Russians engineered a departure of the Asad family, and the army remains in power, it doesn't deal with widespread grievances over jobs and privileges. I am also not really sure what the Russians get out of this, it is damaging their reputation, and they don't have a track record of brokering peace treaties as far as I am aware.

Not sure about Jordan, its demise has been predicted many times before, yet it has remained one of the most stable countries in the region since the tumultuous years of 1967-1971. Instead of waves of immigration destabilising the monarchy, the relative poverty of Jordan's natural resources has been offset by the mini-economic booms that have followed: it isn't just poor refugees who have sought sanctuary there, but those Palestinians from Kuwait in 1990-91 who sold up and brought their capital -then the Iraqi's, and I am sure many Syrians who don't want to live in Moscow have moved their assets and families to Jordan -if not Amman then Irbid. Most of the land in Jordan is owned by the tribes who formed the basis of the Hashemite support in 1921 and ever since, as well as through the armed forces.

The unknown factor that looms is the break-up of the modern states system that replaced the Ottoman provinces after 1918. Iraq is most vulnerable to this with the autonomous Kurdish region behaving already as if it were a separate state -with the Shi'a govt in Baghdad battling a Sunni rebellion, although this is shaped as much by the politics of resources as much as age-old doctrinal rivalry.

Nobody has clean hands in this conflict, and trust is in short supply.

[Prospero]

There has been much disicussion of why the Russians support Assad so strongly - with the chinese also refusing to condemn the regime via the UN.

In the Chinese case it might be connected to the Muslim "insurgency" they are fighting in their own back yard in Xanjing province against the Uighar people. This insurgecy, largely unreportable because western journalists are not allowed in the region, is thought to be rather more an attempt by the chinese to impose their own cultural values on a resolutely Muslim people.

Russian support is more perplexing. One simple explanation which is offered is the fact that Syria provides Russia with its last Mediterranean port. But other commentators say it is more personal for Putin - who is said to greatly fear the message that the overthrow and collapse of Assad would send to the Russian people and to Muslim discontents in the Southern part of Russia. The Russians fought a long and hugely bloody struggle against the Muslim Chechen people.

[Dino Velvet]

Thanks for the posts, fellas. I read an article here and there but you two have been over there.

[Stavros]

Russian support is more perplexing. One simple explanation which is offered is the fact that Syria provides Russia with its last Mediterranean port. But other commentators say it is more personal for Putin - who is said to greatly fear the message that the overthrow and collapse of Assad would send to the Russian people and to Muslim discontents in the Southern part of Russia. The Russians fought a long and hugely bloody struggle against the Muslim Chechen people.

Your thoughts on the Russians are of note because the political conflicts in the Caucasus are unresolved -you could even argue that whilst the Soviet era put a lid on it, the disputes over Russian 'sovereignty' in that region date back to the 19th century if not before. The other argument would be the disapproval of the Russians at the way in which Qadhafi was overthrown, particularly the intervention which followed the success of the rebels in securing Benghazi. It is of course entirely ironic that a people's revolution is frowned upon in the successor to the USSR, even if it is heavily sponsored from outside. Mind you, the inheritors of 1776 weren't that keen on popular revolutions in Central America in the 1980s.

And yet, there may be a deeper anxiety here: in 1979, relations between Moscow and Baghdad cooled, again because of 'regime change', specifically Saddam Hussein's 'coup' against Hassan al-Bakr and the violent purge of the Ba'ath Party that took place- this alienated the Russians and brought Hafiz al-Asad closer to the USSR, but even more important is the simple fact that the USSR after vacating Azerbaijan province in in Iran in 1947 left behind a network of KGB agents who worked with the Tudeh party to undermine the Shah (particularly after 1954). It is argued that Soviet -then Russian- support for Iran has been retained through the Islamic Revolution as part of an anti-American, pro-Syrian/Iranian axis in the Middle East. Pavel Stroilov has claimed Gorbachev was the only head of state to receive a personal message from the Ayatollah Khomeini, even if it did suggest he give up communism and become a Muslim (!). It may therefore be part of a Russian fear that if it loses Syria, it will only have a delicate relationship with Iran to fall back on, with the assumption that 'losing Syria' weakens Iran, and therefore weakens Russia. In geo-strategic terms, the Russians have had their eye on the Persian Gulf for more than a century, they may still be smarting at the loss of the petroleum concession to the British in 1901.

The Russians are protecting their presence in the Middle East. How would the other powers doing it?

Not really sure about Stroilov but his book (Behind the Desert Storm) is here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BIvc2ztbhTQC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=gorbachev+and+gaddafi&source=bl&ots=gXCSwB47xX&sig=r614jYKmkBOwKNkiamCo_Lz8R24&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BxayUe34G6620QWgyICoBg&ved=0CGoQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=gorbachev%20and%20gaddafi&f=false

[Dino Velvet]

Bill Clinton joins up with John McCain.

http://news.yahoo.com/bill-clinton-urges-more-forceful-u-response-syria-162055123.html


Bill Clinton urges more forceful U.S. response on Syria: report

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/FZN6924R0WZ__x92.x6.GA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/reuters/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/)Reuters – 1 hr 27 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Obama administration considers whether to arm Syrian rebels, former President Bill Clinton increased pressure for a stronger U.S. role in Syria's civil war, short of sending in U.S. troops, according to a report.
"Nobody is asking for American soldiers in Syria," Clinton said, according to the report from the newspaper Politico published late Wednesday.
"The only question is: now that the Russians, the Iranians and the Hezbollah are in there head over heels ... should we try to do something to try to slow their gains and rebalance the power so that these rebel groups have a decent chance, if they're supported by a majority of the people, to prevail?"
Clinton made the remarks at a closed-press event earlier this week with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, one of the fiercest critics of President Barack Obama's unwillingness so far to provide direct military support to the rebels opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The conflict has left at least 93,000 dead in a two-year fight, the United Nations said on Thursday.
The situation on the ground has changed dramatically in recent weeks, with Assad winning the open support of fighters from Hezbollah, the Shi'ite militia from neighboring Lebanon. Assad also is backed by regional Shi'ite power Iran and Russia, which has used its veto to block U.N. Security Council action against him.
The comments from fellow Democrat Clinton increases pressure on Obama as his administration considers options on Syria at White House talks this week, including whether to arm the rebels.
Clinton said he agreed with McCain that the United States needed to intervene, according to the report by Politico, which said it obtained an audio recording from an attendee at the event for the McCain Institute for International Leadership held on Tuesday in New York.
"Sometimes it's just best to get caught trying, as long as you don't over-commit - like, as long as you don't make an improvident commitment," Clinton said, according to the report.
He said several times it would be "lame" to point to opposition in polls or among U.S. lawmakers as a reason not to intervene in a conflict, Politico said.
Obama has been reluctant to arm the rebels out of concern the weapons could fall into the wrong hands, and opinion polls back him, with some surveys showing as few as 10 percent of Americans in favor of intervention.
If the United States decides against arming the rebels, Arab and European states could step in.
Clinton's comments come just months after his wife Hillary left as U.S. secretary of state. The White House had no immediate comment on the Politico report.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Alistair Bell and Vicki Allen)

http://www.indynewsisrael.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Bill-Clinton-John-McCain.jpg

[Stavros]

The BBC last night broadcast the third and last programme about the Iraq war, which contained some depressing comments from all involved which makes one wonder how informed decision makers are before, as Tony Blair said in the first programme, they decide to 'remake the Middle East'. Curious how the same generation of politicians don't mount ground troops, spies, air power, cyber-power and all the rest of it to 're-make the Korean peninsula' and they seem indifferent to the misery that has been inflicted on the people of the 'Democratic Republic of the Congo' but dealing with all sorts of venal thieves, killers and rapists or 're-making Southern Africa' isn't on the agenda, however much profit is made from diamonds, cobalt and other minerals.

In the same programme last night, Cheney was insistent that there had to be a change in the leadership in Iraq in 2006 because the Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was considered ineffective and because the USA was determined 'to win' and leave Iraq as 'a stable democracy'. The chilling thing is that Cheney believes his own rhetoric even as the shameless Jack Straw (and Condi Rice) went to Baghdad to tell al-Jaafari he was no longer going to be Prime Minister of Iraq which Straw cheerfully pointed out was an act of colonial intervention! What has anyone won in Iraq? Saddam Hussein is dead, the Kurds are signing oil contracts as if the North is already an independent state, the Shi'a have made it clear that Iraq is now under their control while the Sunna are now as marginalised and ostracised as the Shi'a were under Saddam. When the last elections returned a larger majority for the opposition Iraqiya party, Maliki annulled the elections and arrested the Iraqiya leadership!

As I said in an earlier post, the Ba'ath regime in Syria which used to be and attracted support in Syria as a Secular government, has now become identified as a Shi'a-oriented government, a process that will alienate the country's Christian and secular minorities -who now repesents the interests of these communities? The politics of dictatorship which has reared a generation for whom politics is limited to violence rather then democratic debate, has debased secularism and led the country into a futile war.
Clinton on this issue is a misguided fool playing domestic politics with no regard for the situation in Syria. Why should the USA intervene when it has signed multi-trillion arms contracts with Saudi Arabia over the last 50 years! Saudi Arabia has either spent trillions on weapons it doesn't know how to use, or is terrified that if it puts its own soldiers on the ground in Syria they will get nothing out of it. It is rather like the last days of the Serbian-Bosnian crisis when the military might of the European states sat on its ass and it was the Americans who intervened to end the worst of the violence.

The historical record shows that American intervention has at times been crucial to military success -the First and Second World Wars are obvious examples. With all due respect to Mr Clinton, the USA can't do everything all the time, you are not the world's policeman. The US already has special forces in Jordan, Syria, and probably in Iraq, isn't that enough?

The Middle East is in this turmoil because outsiders won't leave it alone. 100 years of meddling -what is the legacy?

[Dino Velvet]

Looks like we're trying to snake our way in there one way or the other.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/syria-chemical-weapons-assad_n_3437640.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D329017


Syria's Assad Used Chemical Weapons Against Rebels, U.S. Officials Conclude

Posted: 06/13/2013 5:00 pm EDT | Updated: 06/13/2013 6:31 pm EDT




U.S. officials have concluded that the Syrian regime of president Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/world/middleeast/white-house-pushes-back-on-bill-clintons-syria-remarks.html?smid=tw-nytimes) against rebel fighters, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
Congressional sources told CNN that investigators concluded that Syria (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/syria) has used chemical weapons multiple times (https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/345286601368289280).
In a statement released on Thursday (http://www.humanrights.gov/2013/06/13/statement-on-syrian-chemical-weapons-use/), the White House says U.S. intelligence concluded that the Assad regime used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent Sarin, against rebel fighters in the last year.
The statement continues:
Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information. The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete. While the lethality of these attacks make up only a small portion of the catastrophic loss of life in Syria, which now stands at more than 90,000 deaths, the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses clear red lines that have existed within the international community for decades. We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons. We have no reliable, corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons. The White House reiterates that President Obama has designated the use of chemical weapons as a red line and that the U.S. will increase its assistance to the opposition.
"Our intelligence community now has a high confidence assessment that chemical weapons have been used on a small scale by the Assad regime in Syria. The President has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has," the statement says.
National Security Council deputy advisor Ben Rhodes said on Thursday that the President Obama reached a decision (http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/us-will-provide-military-support-to-syrian-rebels) on what the new support for the Syrian opposition would look like. According to Buzzfeed, Rhodes said: “The president has made a decision ”about what kind of additional support will be provided to the rebels. It will be “direct support to the SMC [Supreme Military Command] that includes military support.” Rhodes added that no decision has been made on the institution of a no-fly zone.
More from the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has conclusive evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons against opposition forces seeking to overthrow the government, crossing what President Barack Obama has called a "red line" that would trigger greater American involvement in the crisis, the White House said Thursday. Officials said Obama was considering both political and military options, but it was unclear how quickly new actions would be taken and what they would involve.
"We've prepared for many contingencies in Syria," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser. "We are going to make decisions on further actions on our own timeline."
The White House said the Assad regime had used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale multiple times in the last year. Up to 150 people have been killed in those attacks, the White House said, constituting a small percentage of the 93,000 people killed in Syria over the last two years.
The Obama administration announced in April that it had "varying degrees of confidence" that sarin had been used in Syria. But they said at the time that they had not been able to determine who was responsible for deploying the gas.
The more conclusive findings announced Thursday were aided by evidence sent to the United States by France, which along with Britain, announced it had determined that Assad's government had used chemical weapons in the two-year conflict.
Obama has said repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and constitute a "game changer" for U.S. policy on Syria, which until now has focused entirely on providing the opposition with nonlethal assistance and humanitarian aid.
The White House said Congress has been notified of the new U.S. chemical weapons determination, as have international allies. Obama will discuss the assessments, along with broader problems in Syria, next week during the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.
Obama is also expected to press Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad's most powerful backers, to drop his political and military support for the Syrian government.
"We believe that Russia and all members of the international community should be concerned about the use of chemical weapons," Rhodes said.





http://rt.com/files/news/1e/69/20/00/17.si.jpg

[Dino Velvet]

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-step-military-support-syrian-rebels-233546868.html


Obama to step up military support of Syrian rebels

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/oXh_6AJBHy_uEbdrklkymA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjg-/http://l.yimg.com/os/152/2012/04/21/image001-png_162613.png (http://www.ap.org/)By MATTHEW LEE and JULIE PACE | Associated Press – 15 mins ago


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has authorized sending weapons to Syrian rebels for the first time, U.S. officials said Thursday, after the White House disclosed that the United States has conclusive evidence Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has used chemical weapons against opposition forces trying to overthrow him.
Obama has repeatedly said the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" triggering greater American intervention in the two-year crisis.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the strongest proponents of U.S. military action in Syria, said he was told Thursday that Obama had decided to "arm the rebels", a decision confirmed by three U.S. officials. However, the officials cautioned that no decisions had been made on the specific type of weaponry or when it would reach the Syrian rebels, who are under increasing assault from Assad's forces.
"This is going to be different in both scope and scale in terms of what we are providing," said Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser.
The U.S. has so far provided the Syrian rebel army with rations and medical supplies.
Thursday's announcement followed a series of urgent meetings at the White House this week that revealed deep divisions within the administration over U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war. The proponents of more aggressive action — including Secretary of State John Kerry — appeared to have won out over those wary of sending weapons and ammunition into a war zone where Hezbollah and Iranian fighters are backing Assad's armed forces, and al-Qaida-linked extremists back the rebellion.
Obama still opposes putting American troops on the ground in Syria and the U.S. has made no decision on operating a no-fly zone over Syria, Rhodes said.
U.S. officials said the administration could provide the rebels with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired remote-propelled grenades and other missiles. However, a final decision on the inventory has not been made, the officials said.
Most of those would be weapons the opposition forces could easily use and not require much additional training to operate. Obama's opposition to deploying American troops to Syria makes it difficult to provide much large-scale training. Other smaller- scale training can be done outside Syria's borders.
All of the officials insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions.
Word of the stepped up assistance followed new U.S. intelligence assessments showing that Assad has used chemical weapons, including sarin, on a small scale multiple times in the last year. Up to 150 people have been killed in those attacks, the White House said, constituting a small percentage of the 93,000 people killed in Syria over the last two years.
The White House said it believes Assad's regime still maintains control of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles and does not see any evidence that rebel forces have launched attacks using the deadly agents.
The Obama administration announced in April that it had "varying degrees of confidence" that sarin had been used in Syria. But they said at the time that they had not been able to determine who was responsible for deploying the gas.
The more conclusive findings announced Thursday were aided by evidence sent to the United States by France, which, along with Britain, announced it had determined that Assad's government had used chemical weapons in the two-year conflict.
Obama has said repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons would cross a "red line" and constitute a "game changer" for U.S. policy on Syria, which until now has focused entirely on providing the opposition with nonlethal assistance and humanitarian aid.
The White House said it had notified Congress, the United Nations and key international allies about the new U.S. chemical weapons determination. Obama will discuss the assessments, along with broader problems in Syria, next week during the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.
Among those in attendance will be Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad's most powerful backers. Obama and Putin will hold a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the summit, where the U.S. leader is expected to press his Russian counterpart to drop his political and military support for the Syrian government.
"We believe that Russia and all members of the international community should be concerned about the use of chemical weapons," Rhodes said.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said his country was "not surprised by the determination made by the U.S. government," given its own assessments, and was in consultation with the Americans about next steps.
The U.S. has so far provided the Syrian rebel army with rations and medical supplies. In April, Kerry announced that the administration had agreed in principle to expand its military support to the opposition to include defensive items like night vision goggles, body armor and armored vehicles.
The Syrian fighters have been clamoring for bolder Western intervention, particularly given the estimated 5,000 Hezbollah guerrillas propping up Assad's forces. Assad's stunning military success last week at Qusair, near the Lebanese border, and preparations for offensives against Homs and Aleppo have made the matter more urgent.
While McCain has pressed for a greater role for the U.S. military, other lawmakers have expressed reservations about American involvement in another conflict and fears that weapons sent to the rebels could fall into the hands of al-Qaida-linked groups.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned the Assad regime but expressed serious concerns about the United States being pulled into a proxy war.
"There are many actions that the United States can take to increase our humanitarian assistance to refugee populations and opposition groups short of injecting more weapons into the conflict," Murphy said. "I urge the president to exercise restraint and to consult closely with Congress before undertaking any course of action to commit American military resources to Syrian opposition forces."
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, also urged the White House to consult with Congress.
"It is long past time to bring the Assad regime's bloodshed in Syria to an end," he said through a spokesman, Brendan Buck. "As President Obama examines his options, it is our hope he will properly consult with Congress before taking any action."
___
Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Donna Cassata, Andrew Taylor in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/fSHeYWoIchONl9XwYghaqg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD02MjY7cT03OTt3PTkxOQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/29223ed8d002ad13340f6a706700bbb5.jpg
FILE - In this April 30, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama answers questions during his new conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room
of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 30, 2013. U.S. officials said June 13, 2013, that the Obama administration has concluded that
Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has used chemical weapons against the opposition seeking to overthrow him, crossing what Obama called a 'red line'.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

[Prospero]

It remains to be seen exactly what sort of military aid is supplied to the rebels. And if it is hardware how it gets to the right rebels. John McCain meanwhile continues to bang the drum of even more direct intervention. Dangerous words.

The region is now teetering on the brink of what could become a major conflagration. If the US does arm the rebels or outs its own forces into play in some manner and Russia responds b, at the very least strengthing it's support for Assad, what might Israel do? What prospect for the conflict not really spilling over into Lebanon... and Jordan perhaps. What about Turkey? And of course Iran borders wealthy Sunni controlled Gulf states - mere miles from the UAE (with whom they are already in dispute over some islands - even though they are otherwise strong trading partners) Iran is already involved in covert supprt for the Shias in Bahrain and are likely to focus its ire (or worse) on Qatar which is the main funder of the rebels and have long been locked in a devil's embrace with Saudi Arabia. The picture looks ugly indeed. Today I read that Jihadists are moving towards the region from Pakistan and North Africa - together with Shia fighters. Does Obama really want to put US lives into the middle of this - and will Cameron and the UK Government get involved. It is entirely possible this could be a far wider conflict than the mere Middle East.

As we've discussed here before what on earth would victory be anyway. A nation in ruins. Millions dead. An al-queda aligned rebel victory. grim for the region and wider world.

[Stavros]

I agree with most of what you say Prospero, except that I think that, as in Iraq, the long-term influence of 'al-Qaeda' in Syria is precarious, as the Salafist groups are as divided as the rest of the Syrian opposition and I doubt that the Syrian Sunna would tolerate the kind of behaviour that al-Qaeda in Iraq got up to -although it was touched on the Iraq War programme in fact they did not go deeper into the Awakening movement and the wide-ranging revolt amongst Sunni in Iraq against al-Qaeda. The programme prefered to use 'the surge' as the key to defeating the extremists. Just this last week Ayman al-Zawahri rejected the merger of the Jabhat al-Nusra with al-Qaeda in Iraq.
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/06/09/al-qaeda-emir-ayman-al-zawahiri-annuls-merger-between-syrias-al-nusra-front-and-al-qaeda-in-iraq/

Earlier this week a report from Channel 4 suggested Qatar might be having second thoughts about its involvement in Syria, support it gave because of the 'clean break' with Qadhafi in Libya, which hasn't emerged in Syria. The concern is that if Qatar continues to support the rebels, it might be vulnerable to some action from Iran, as you also point out this could make Bahrain vulnerable too.

Not sure about Israel -it has already directly attacked targets in Syria, but I doubt Asad would retaliate without working out the further consequences, whereas some action by Hezbollah might make more strategic sense, but these would be skirmishes rather than extended warfare. I don't know if the new President in Iran, who will be selected rather than elected over the next 48 hours or so will change policy.

If Israel has used phosphorous bombs in the Gaza District, isn't this the illegal use of chemical weapons? Israel says it used them to illuminate areas at night and that this use is not illegal in international law, but there s evidence of the bombs injuring civilians...
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israelis-rain-phosphorous-bombs-over-gaza/7965

What doesn't seem to be happening is a significant push for negotiations, unless these commitments to arms are part of the bargaining process.

[Prospero]

But Israel are always given the benefit of the doubt, aren't they.... re: the phosphorous

[Stavros]

A well-argued piece in today's Independent on Sunday by Patrick Cockburn: if the 'red line' for the Obama administration was Syria's use of chemicals weapons, for which little evidence has been supplied, what is the position if the Rebels have access to the same weapons -where the evidence is clear from the 2kg cylinder of Sarin gas which members of the al-Nusra front had when arrested in Turkey...and as Cockburn argues, why would Asad or someone in the military use Sarin knowing that it is the 'red line' that would provoke US intervention? As he argues, the problems is the incoherent and poorly organised rebel opposition, and a bedrock of support for Asad, suggesting that external forces are needed to achieve what ground forces from Syria cannot -force Asad to leave or open talks on a transition. I note nobody, not even Cockburn suggests the armed forces of other Arab states take the initiative, his observations of Afghanistan suggest most of the time the Mujahideen are not very effective. But if an all-out war is the only solution, is it a solution that will actually work? With other reports today that Iran is/may be sending 4,000 ground troops into Syria is this going to make ground force action against Asad's government more or less likely? His final call for diplomacy to replace force rings true, but are the 'movers and shakers' listening?
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/only-an-allout-war-can-depose-assad-anything-less-is-like-being-halfpregnant-8660482.html