Syria crisis: evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by regime spurs call for war crimes charges
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by coffin_dodger » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:58 am
Syria crisis: evidence of 'industrial-scale killing' by regime spurs call for war crimes charges
by seemslikeadream » Fri Jan 24, 2014 8:53 am
Neocons Take Aim at Syrian Peace Talks
January 23, 2014
Exclusive: Syrian peace talks have finally begun, but many powerful interests – including U.S. neocons – are determined to see the talks fail. The Washington Post’s neocon editorial page is urging President Obama to give up on “feckless diplomacy” and threaten war, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial page is still beating the drums for U.S. military intervention in Syria, but its latest demand for violent reprisals against the Syrian government dropped a key element in the previous propaganda campaign: the claim that President Bashar al-Assad had “gassed his own people.”
Without admitting that those earlier Sarin gas allegations have fallen apart, the Post editors simply moved on to new accusations — that the Syrian government tortured thousands of captives who were subsequently killed. Those claims came from an anonymous “defector” who claims he took photographs to document the deaths and then turned the images over to the anti-Assad government of Qatar.
Washington Post's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt.
Washington Post’s editorial page editor Fred Hiatt.
Of course, the Post editors treat the new allegations as flat fact, much as they did with earlier charges against the Syrian regime – and with the Bush-43 administration’s claims in 2002-03 that Iraq was hiding stockpiles of WMD. The Post was catastrophically wrong in the Iraq case, but none of those top editors lost their jobs over the fiasco. Instead, they’re still around treating the new Syrian accusations with the same lack of professional skepticism that they displayed regarding Iraq.
But what’s interesting about the Post’s editorial on Thursday calling for the Obama administration to threaten a U.S. military assault if the Assad regime doesn’t comply with U.S. government demands is that the editorial makes no direct reference to the Sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of Syrians on Aug. 21.
Last summer, the Obama administration and the mainstream U.S. news media blamed that Sarin attack on the Syrian government with the same certitude and outrage as we’re now seeing over the “torture photos.”
Indeed, the conventional wisdom over the Sarin attack very nearly led to a U.S. military bombardment. The rush to judgment was spurred on by Human Rights Watch, which had been pushing for a U.S. intervention, and the New York Times, when they jointly concluded that a vectoring of the reverse flight paths of the two rockets involved in the attack tracked back 9.5 kilometers and intersected at an elite Syrian military base near Assad’s Presidential Palace.
Despite this supposedly conclusive “proof,” a U.S. attack was headed off by a mix of U.S. public opposition, President Barack Obama’s willingness to test out a diplomatic alternative, and Assad’s agreement to surrender his chemical weapons (while still denying a role in the Aug. 21 attack).
Recently, however, the certitude about the Assad government’s responsibility for the Sarin attack has collapsed. First, the Obama administration refused to release any of the evidence that it claimed to possess that would have supported its claims that the rockets were launched from government-controlled areas.
Second, the UN inspectors determined that one of the two rockets – the one that landed in Moadamiya, south of Damascus – contained no Sarin. The rocket also clipped a building in its descent, making any calculation of its flight path unreliable.
Third, when UN inspectors and independent rocket experts studied the one Sarin-laden rocket that struck Zamalka, east of Damascus, they concluded that its maximum range was only about two kilometers, meaning that the HRW/NYT analysis was impossible, a reality that the Times only grudgingly acknowledged last month.
The two-kilometer range also meant that the rocket could not have come for any territory under the Syrian government’s control, based on a U.S. government map released on Aug. 30. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mistaken Guns of Last August.”]
‘Torture Photos’
But the Washington Post editors didn’t bother to inform their readers about the collapse of this earlier propaganda theme that nearly justified a U.S. war against the Syrian government. In Thursday’s editorial, the Aug. 21 allegations vanish, replaced by the “torture photos” and other accusations of human rights violations.
Of course, it is certainly believable that the Syrian government did engage in torture and murder of Islamic militants and other rebels captured during the current civil war. A decade ago, George W. Bush’s administration relied upon the Syrian government and other authoritarian Arab states to torture U.S. detainees in the “war on terror.” Some of them also died in captivity.
So, it wouldn’t be beyond belief that Syrian officials have continued to deploy similar techniques against their domestic “terrorists” and jihadists flocking to Syria from other Muslim lands. But that doesn’t mean the photos provided by a “defector” to the government of Qatar, which is actively supporting the anti-Assad militants, should be accepted at face value.
During the run-up to the war in Iraq, at least 18 Iraqi “defectors” – many managed by the neocon-allied Iraqi National Congress – provided detailed allegations about the Iraqi government’s WMD stockpiles and Iraq’s collaboration with al-Qaeda. Though the claims were widely promoted by the Bush administration and gullibly accepted by most of the mainstream U.S. press, they all turned out to be false. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
If the Washington Post’s editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt learned anything from the disastrous Iraq War, it should have been to treat “defector” claims with many grains of salt. But it’s probably a safe bet that Hiatt and his fellow neocon opinion-shapers are not really interested in applying the normal skepticism of professional journalism. They’re looking more toward advancing the neocon agenda.
The Post’s only reference to the discredited accusations blaming the Aug. 21 Sarin attack on the Syrian government is implicit, mentioning how Obama’s threat of a military strike had gotten the Assad regime to surrender its chemical weapons. So, the Post argues, Obama should forsake the current Syrian peace talks — what the editorial calls “feckless diplomacy” — and go back to the well of making more military threats to enforce new demands:
“President Obama demonstrated last year that the credible threat of force could change the regime’s behavior. His promise of airstrikes caused Mr. Assad to surrender an arsenal of chemical weapons. Yet the president seems not to have learned the lesson of that episode.
“Now he makes the defeatist argument that, as he put it to David Remnick of the New Yorker, ‘It is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which our involvement in Syria would have led to a better outcome, short of us being willing to undertake an effort in size and scope similar to what we did in Iraq.’ In fact, Mr. Obama probably could force the measures [demanding more concessions] by presenting Mr. Assad with the choice of accepting them or enduring U.S. airstrikes.”
The problem with the Post’s threat of a military attack is that President Obama would have to be ready to carry it out if Assad did not comply with the new U.S. demands. But that may well be what the Post’s neocon editors really desire, another war against another Arab nation.
The Propaganda War Heats Up
Top Three Media Lies About the Syrian Peace Talks
by SHAMUS COOKE
The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the “Geneva II” Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration peace talks.
1) The removal of Syrian presidentBashar al-Assad was an agreed upon “precondition” for the Geneva II peace talks.
This lie has been repeated over and over by government and media alike. It has zero basis. The Obama administration claims that this precondition was expressed in the “Geneva communiqué,” which was a road map agreement meant to guide the Geneva II peace talks, agreed upon by some of the major parties of the negotiations, including Russia.
The communiqué does indeed call for a negotiated political transition, but nowhere does it state that such a transition cannot include President Assad. Such a condition would have been outright rejected by Russia.
In fact, the Geneva communiqué includes this crucial statement:
“[a transition government] could include members of the present [Syrian] government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.”
Nowhere does it specifically mention or imply President Assad.
The Los Angeles Times recently stepped out of line and exposed this lie:
“[John] Kerry regularly cites the “Geneva communiqué,” a kind of peace road map hammered out in June 2012 during a United Nations-organized summit. But the document does not explicitly call for Assad’s ouster.”
The Obama administration’s constant repeating of this lie only causes divisions in the peace process, undermining the chances that the peace process will succeed.
The Obama administration is especially adamant about this “Assad must go” pre-condition because it knows that, if free and fair elections were held tomorrow in Syria — as part of a UN-backed “transitional process”— President Assad would likely win. This is the result of the ethnic and religious minorities in Syria that have rallied behind President Assad, since they’ve witnessed the consistent religious sectarian atrocities committed by the U.S.-backed rebels (which the U.S. media loves to ignore or minimize).
Assad would probably win an election since there is also simply no one else on the government side or the opposition side with his name recognition or popularity. The U.S.-backed rebel war in Syria has vastly strengthened Assad’s political hand, but you wouldn’t know it from the Western, anti-Syrian media.
Demanding Assad’s ouster also does not reflect the situation on the ground. The U.S.-backed rebels have never controlled more than one Syrian city, namely Raqaa, which is dominated by al-Qaeda and is governed under a Taliban-style interpretation of Islamic law, which includes a strict ban on music. Thus, the rebels don’t have the ground power that would even enable them to make the demand that “Assad must go”.
2) The U.S.-backed rebel militias are “moderate” Islamic groups.
The fact that this lie can even be uttered publicly without encountering ridicule is a major success of Western media propaganda. The media narrative paints the U.S.-backed “good” rebels fighting both the Syrian government and the “bad” al-Qaeda linked rebels.
But the “good” rebels in the U.S.-backed Islamic Front share the same vision for Syria’s future as the al-Qaeda rebels: a fundamentalist version of Sharia law, where women live in virtual house arrest and where religious minorities are second class citizens (non-Sunni Muslims would simply be butchered, as they are on a regular basis in Syria, which is again minimized or ignored in the Western media.)
The “moderate rebel” lie was further exposed recently when a top leader in the most powerful militia, Ahrar al Sham, within the Islamic Front declared Ahrar al Sham to be the “real” representative of al-Qaeda in Syria, as opposed to the rival al-Qaeda faction that the Islamic Front had recently begun fighting.
Ahrar al Sham has long been known to be an al-Qaeda type Islamist extremist group; the Western media simply chose to ignore it. But when it was recently made official, the U.S. media chose to continue its ignoring stance, since actually reporting on it would destroy their “moderate rebel” lie. The Western media also continues to ignore the fact that the “moderate” U.S.-backed Islamic Front issued a joint statement that aligned itself to the extremist views of Ahrar al Sham, the “real” al-Qaeda.
3) New Evidence of Syrian government “industrial scale” torture.
The Western media recently blasted the “breaking news” of brand new evidence showing massive “NAZI-like” torture and murder by the Syrian government, released at the beginning of the Syrian peace talks. This may or may not be true, but the lie here is that the Western media promoted the “evidence” as being unquestionably true, when the story doesn’t reach first base when it comes to evidence-based journalism.
All we really know is that there are hundreds of pictures of dead people that a “trusted source” says were killed by the Syrian government. The trusted source was designated as such by pro-Western intellectuals, who have earned professional “credibility” by helping convict war criminals in the International Criminal Court [ICC]. But as author Diane Johnstone pointed out in her excellent book “Fools Crusade,” about the war against Yugoslavia — as well as in other articles — the ICC has long been used by western powers as a tool to create a pretext for war, or a tool to justify a war after the fact.
The evidence of the “NAZI-like” atrocities was written in a study paid for by the government of Qatar, which has long funneled cash, guns, and Jihadis to Syria in aid of the anti-government rebels.
Again, we don’t know if the story is true or not. But such an important investigation should be conducted by the UN or another more objective institution. The same biased dynamic occurred in relation to the infamous chemical weapons attack, where no real evidence was provided, though an unending string of “experts” were quoted in the Western media, testifying to the guilt of the Syrian Government. But when Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Seymour Hirsch reported that the Obama administration lied about the rebels not having the capacity to perform such an attack, the Western media simply ignored the legend of journalism. The wrench in the propaganda machine was simply dislodged.
How do these lies become such permanent fixtures in the Western media? An excellent article in the Guardian newspaper recently discussed in depth the principal sources the Western media has used to understand the Syrian conflict.
The article exposed the incredible bias of some of the most important Western media sources on Syria, which is why they were handpicked in the first place to be “expert” sources: they had political agendas that were aligned with the U.S. government’s foreign policy decisions. The other side of the conflict was completely ignored, except when it was targeted for ridicule. Thus, Americans and Europeans have a completely one-sided, if not fantasy-based perspective of what is happening in Syria. This has been systematic since the beginning of the conflict, as happened with the Yugoslav, Afghan, Iraq, and Libya wars.
The result of this media-led ignorance could result in yet more unnecessary deaths in a country that now has millions of refugees and over a 100,000 dead. Obama seems like he intends to exploit these peace talks with the intention of blaming the Syrian government for their failure. Having failed to defeat Assad on the battlefield in a proxy war, the Obama administration is trying to win the propaganda war. And once peace talks have failed, talk of war will resume, since “all other options have failed.”
by cptmarginal » Fri Jan 31, 2014 3:37 am
The pictures are horrific, the torture details revolting, the numbers terrifying. And the integrity of the three former prosecutors who have effectively accused the Syrian government of war crimes, are without blemish. Shrivelled, blood-spattered corpses provide unstoppable evidence of regime cruelty – just as the videotapes of Syrian rebel executions tell us what kind of Syria may soon exist if the insurrection against Bashar al-Assad succeeds.
Besides, everyone knows that the Assad regime – from father Hafez onwards – has employed torture and executions to preserve the doubtful purity of the Baath party. So why not, indeed, talk of war crimes? Well, let’s just remember that the 11,000 prisoners reportedly done to death by the Syrian regime is only just over half the total number of Syrians – 20,000 – reportedly killed by Hafez’s brother’s troops in the besieged Syrian city of Hama in 1982.
So how come we are not demanding war crimes trials for those responsible for that even greater massacre, whose perpetrators – reported at the time and recounted in numerous books afterwards — came from the ranks of the special units commanded by Rifaat al-Assad. Could it be that we have just forgotten this even more terrible massacre? Or could it be – since Rifaat, who has denied any role in the Hama operations, now lives in safety in Paris and sometimes in London, protected by our own European security services – that we don’t have the inclination to pursue that particular bloodbath?
No, that’s not to say that the evidence from Qatar – and we shall come to the matter of Qatar shortly – is not true. But we should be asking a lot more questions than we have been asking about this portrait gallery of pain, unleashed only hours before an international conference in Switzerland in which we in the West – but perhaps not Qatar – hope to end the civil war in Syria.
How long, for example, have the Qatari authorities been in possession of this terrible eye-witness material? A couple of weeks, just enough time to rustle up the lawyers for the prosecution? Or a couple of months? Or six months? And, more to the point, why now? For it would be difficult to imagine a better way for Qatar – whose royal family viscerally hates Bashar al-Assad – to destroy his hopes of a future role in Syria, even in a ‘transitional’ Syrian government, than by releasing these snapshots of terror just before the Swiss talks.
Indeed, one is reminded – in terms of political purpose rather than historical parallel, of course — of Nazi Germany’s disclosure of the mass graves of 22,000 Polish officers and civilians murdered by the Soviet secret police in 1940 at Katyn, in that part of Russia newly occupied by German troops. The Nazis claimed the Soviets were responsible – in the hope that this would divide Stalin’s alliance with America and Britain. The Allies denounced the Nazis for the massacre – although it was indeed committed by the Soviets. Does Qatar now hope to divide Syria’s alliance with Russia and Iran with similar evidence of Syrian government mass murder?
There are other questions to ask, of course. How on earth did the Syrian police operative who brought the incriminating photographs out of Syria, acquire the code-name ‘Caesar’. True, the real Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and set the Empire on the path to civil war. But who called him ‘Caesar’? And why? The real Caesar – a moment of incongruity here — was stabbed to death in the Roman senate, an act which led directly to the execution of Cicero – which was the codename of Nazi Germany’s top spy in Istanbul, the top Middle East espionage centre in World War Two.
But seriously… How come Qatar’s brilliant plaything, al-Jazeera – the Arab satellite channel to beat them all – didn’t get the exclusive on the Syrian execution story? I’m told that al-Jazeera didn’t even get advance warning of the revelations, which were handled by a lawyer acting for the Qatari authorities in London.
The involvement of solicitors Carter Ruck – may their name be praised, as every journalist would say at once – may seem quite obvious, but how come the Qataris didn’t involve the obvious NGOs in such disclosures. Human Rights Watch, it turned out, knew nothing about the photographs – had not even time to identify them – and Amnesty International fared no better. If you really want to point the finger at a dictator, why not bring in the heavy guns of HRW and Amnesty?
And Bashar’s reaction so far? Zilch. His delegation in Switzerland can sit down to chat about the need to destroy ‘terrorism’ and offer a few local ceasefires, humanitarian supply convoys and prisoner releases to mark time. The regime’s enemies can parade those terrifying pictures which Qatar has made available. But war and peace in Syria will not be decided by this horror show.
by conniption » Thu Feb 27, 2014 6:02 pm
Telegraph
We can get rid of Assad or fight al-Qaeda, but we can’t do both
To get a proper picture of the Syrian conflict, the West needs to listen to its enemies
By Peter Oborne
26 Feb 2014
223 Comments
For the past three years, when seeking enlightenment about the Syrian crisis, I have often talked to Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer. Mr Crooke, who left government service a decade ago after a long career, now runs a think tank called Conflicts Forum, which maintains contact with organisations such as Hizbollah and governments such as Iran, when official contact has been broken off.
I have learnt to respect and trust Mr Crooke, who has the invaluable habit of being right. When the British and American governments both claimed that President Assad of Syria would fall within weeks, he told me this was wishful thinking. When Western governments hailed the Syrian rebels as a democratic movement of national liberation, he said: hang on a moment. At the heart of the rebellion, he pointed out, was a group of armed gangs funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, dedicated to the establishment of a militant Sunni caliphate across the Middle East. He uttered this warning right at the start of the Syrian conflict, and at last the penny is (ever so painfully) beginning to drop in Whitehall and Washington.
So when Conflicts Forum invited me to a seminar in Beirut, I accepted with alacrity. It was over the weekend in an otherwise deserted seaside hotel. Lebanon, so prosperous and thriving when I was here four years ago, now conveys an air of desolate menace, as the country struggles to accommodate more than a million Syrian refugees. Parts of the country, including the second city of Tripoli, are increasingly dominated by jihadists.
At the seminar, there was a different world view to the one normally presented in the British media, and a more exotic cast of characters. Mr Crooke had assembled an adviser to President Putin, several Iranian diplomats, as well as representatives from Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – all three organisations labelled as terrorists by Western governments.
To many Telegraph readers, this might sound like a rogues’ gallery. But what they had to say was very interesting. Everyone there took for granted that President Assad has won the war, though they admitted that there may be some time to go before it ends. In the north, they said, the rebels have turned on each other. A crucial battle is now being fought at Qalamoun, in the west. The Syrian army and rebel forces are engaged in a ferocious battle for this strategic ridge, which controls the all-important supply line between Lebanon and rebel territory. We were told that the Battle of Qalamoun was all over bar the shouting, and that it will fall to Assad’s forces quite soon.
The second message was that by far the greatest threat to stability in the Middle East is not Iran, as so often claimed, but Saudi Arabia. This may seem surprising: the Saudis remain among Britain’s closest allies, and only last week Prince Charles paid a happy visit to the kingdom. Yet they have been far and away the most important and deadly sponsor of global terrorism – a fact very well understood by all intelligence agencies, even if the British and American governments cannot bring themselves to admit it, let alone to come to terms with the consequences.
Several participants drew attention to the haunting parallel between Pakistan during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, and Saudi Arabia today. Back then, the Pakistan intelligence services, urged on by the CIA, channelled money and arms to rebel forces. But they catastrophically failed to foresee that these very groups would create mayhem back home when the war ended.
This is the danger that faces Saudi Arabia today. The kingdom has been providing – indirectly – a vast amount of cash and resources to extremist groups advocating the takfiri mutation of Islam, an orientation that brands other Muslims as targets for killing. These takfiris deny the legitimacy of any state or secular power – including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. A comparable problem is starting to emerge in Britain, where M15 is fretting about what British jihadists fighting in Syria might do on their return. This concern has created a potential conflict with the more gung-ho SIS, which has effectively been egging on these very same jihadists.
It was the third message from the seminar, however, that continues to haunt me. The international sponsors of Assad’s Syria – Iran and Russia – see eye to eye: they have been consistent in their support, whatever the consequences. But some of the rebels’ backers – Saudi Arabia, the United States, Britain and Israel – are in bitter conflict with one another, and share no coherence of vision or common purpose.
The British Government has consistently rejected the analysis I have recorded above, and I would not expect many people to agree. But I was impressed by the power of the views I have heard over the past few days, especially when contrasted with the contradictions, emotionalism and wishful thinking from so many Western experts and policy-makers. At the very least, these voices are worth listening to. Yet British officials are forbidden from even speaking to Hizbollah. No wonder thinking in Whitehall has been so stale and misguided – even though the United Nations, South Africa and several European countries were all represented at the seminar at senior level, and all paying attention.
Yet there have been interesting indications over the course of the past few days, although not widely reported, that Western leaders are starting to change course. The first concerns the mysterious disappearance of Bandar bin Sultan. Two years ago, prompted by the United States, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia gave Prince Bandar the task of destroying President Assad. Since then, the prince has poured the Saudi kingdom’s unlimited resources into his mission, backing a wide range of rebel groups, from the so-called moderates to the takfiris who now cause increasing anxiety within the House of Saud. Prince Bandar seems to retain his official title of National Security Adviser and Intelligence Director. But he was missing from a secret meeting of intelligence chiefs recently held in Washington to discuss Syria. He is out of action.
Meanwhile, Robert Ford, the American diplomat who has been the chief US organiser for the Syrian rebels – herding them in and out of negotiations during the failed Geneva talks two weeks ago – has also got the chop. These changes of personnel come amid reports that the Obama administration has confronted the Saudis with a file full of evidence of their involvement in terrorism in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. This report can be found in Al-Akhbar English, a Lebanese newspaper seen as close to Hizbollah. The newspaper hints at the possibility that Saudi could yet be formally classified by the UN security council as a state sponsor of global terrorism. That sounds fanciful, but President Obama’s visit to Riyadh next month now looks pregnant with significance.
As the Beirut meeting closed, I asked Mr Crooke, who wears a tweed jacket and might at first appearance be a country solicitor or land agent, whether President Assad would survive. He said there was no doubt. The United States and Britain are, nevertheless, still pressing for his removal. But the signs are mounting that the Western powers are beginning to understand that they have a choice. They can get rid of Assad, or they can fight al-Qaeda. But they can’t do both. That option was never really there.
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by seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 28, 2014 9:52 am
Kerry won’t call what is happening in Syria ‘genocide’
BY JENNIFER RUBIN
February 27 at 4:28 pm
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, following the pattern of administration spokespeople, refuses to say whether the slaughter of more than 130,000 Syrians by Bashar al-Assad is “genocide.” Why all the hemming and hawing, and isn’t this in fact genocide?
Children react next to the body of their mother after she died what activists said where explosive barrels thrown by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Al-Andhirat neighbourhood of Aleppo February 22, 2014. REUTERS/Hosam Katan (SYRIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)
Children mourn the death of their mother after she was killed by what activists said where explosive barrels thrown by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo. (Hosam Katan/Reuters)
Taking the latter question first, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide defines genocide as:
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It is noteworthy that regardless of “the motive for the crime (land expropriation, national security, territorial integrity, etc.,) if the perpetrators commit acts intended to destroy a group, even part of a group, it is genocide.” The group must be one that is national, ethnic, racial or religious.
In other words, Assad’s purpose may be to stay in power, but he and all those assisting him are committing genocide if they are committing acts intend to destroy a group or even part of a group. The group in this case would be non-Alawite Syrians.
Is there a defense Assad might raise if captured and sent to the Hague? Let him try. In the meantime, why in the world would we not want to use the threat of prosecution of war crimes against him and more important his forces who are complicit in the genocide? It is one of the few points of leverage we might have, and it seems bizarre that we should not use it.
The head of a human rights organization agrees with this analysis, e-mailing Right Turn “I agree 100% that we not reassure Assad either way. We keep removing doubts he may have about us — in the wrong direction.”
So now to the question as to why Kerry and the rest of the administration is vacillating so much. We can only conclude that the moral and geopolitical position of doing nothing would be harder to maintain in their eyes (they are all about international law, don’t you know) if what they were ignoring was “genocide.” All of this simply goes to the utterly hypocritical posturing by the Obama administration. President Obama and his advisers bristle at the notion they are doing nothing on Syria. The president set up an Atrocities Prevention Board (what they possibly do, I can’t imagine) and yet he takes no serious steps over three years to halt the bloodbath. He proclaims himself “frustrated,” which roughly translates to “I’m very upset and am getting pestered that I can’t get this to stop by doing nothing effective.”
Whatever Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, national security adviser Susan Rice, and United Nations representative Samantha Power do, the stain of inaction in the face of genocide (or if you refer, the killing of over 100,000 of Assad’s fellow countryman) is one, like Lady Macbeth’s, that simply won’t come out.
by seemslikeadream » Fri Feb 28, 2014 5:37 pm
Generations on, Christians fleeing Syria return to Turkish homeland
BY AYLA JEAN YACKLEY
MIDYAT, Turkey Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:56am EST
Syriac Christians from Turkey and Syria attend a mass at the Mort Shmuni Syriac Orthodox Church in the town of Midyat, in Mardin province of southeast Turkey in this February 2, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/Files
(Reuters) - When Louis Bandak fled the violence in Syria, he sought refuge in the country his grandfather was forced to abandon exactly 90 years ago this week.
Bandak, his wife and two daughters are part of a small but growing trickle of Christians arriving in Turkey after three years of civil war in Syria killed more than 140,000 people.
"Although I had never been here before, it does not feel strange. This too is my homeland," says Bandak, sitting in warm winter sun outside the 5th Century Mor Abrohom Monastery in Midyat, 30 miles north of the border.
While most Christian refugees are in Lebanon or Jordan, countries with which they share linguistic or cultural ties, several thousand have come to Turkey. For many it is a reversal of their ancestors' flight around a century ago, when World War One and the subsequent building of the post-Ottoman Turkish state made Turkey a hostile land for millions of Christians.
The sectarian strife that has rent apart Syria's delicate multi-ethnic fabric has spawned a severe humanitarian crisis and driven 2.5 million refugees into neighboring countries.
Turkey has taken in 700,000 mostly Sunni Muslim refugees.
The United Nations does not register Syrian refugees by religion so cannot give an exact figure for Christians who have left, but estimates vary between 300,000 and 500,000, says Mark Ohanian, director of programs of the International Orthodox Christian Charities, which works inside Syria.
Their flight has been driven in part because Christians, seen as largely supportive of President Bashar al-Assad, have been targeted by rebels in some parts of Syria and feel threatened by increasingly hardline Islamist fighters.
Some have sought safety in mountain villages in Iraq's stable Kurdish-run north, and about 20,000 ethnic Armenians have resettled in Armenia, Ohanian said.
Syria's total Christian minority, which made up about 10 percent of the pre-war population of 22 million, has generally kept to the sidelines of the war, which pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from the minority Alawite sect, and his foreign Shi'ite allies.
Bandak is Syriac, a people who number about 180,000 in Syria and survive in pockets of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Many still speak a dialect of Aramaic, the language of Christ.
SMUGGLED TO EUROPE
Christians are exiting through Turkey because its border with Europe offers a better chance of eventual asylum there, says Sait Susin, chairman of the Syriac Orthodox Foundation in Istanbul, which relies on donations from the local community to house and feed 500 of its Syrian brethren at a time.
He estimates more than 5,000 Syriacs have passed through Turkey but the precise number is unknown, because most arrive informally and spend anywhere from 10 days to more than a year before moving on. Since late 2012, their numbers have increased steadily as Christians feel a greater threat from an uprising that has grown more radical in outlook, he said.
In a working-class district in Istanbul, about 55 people dwell in a former three-storey home run by Susin's foundation. Another 150 people are on a waiting list for beds.
Entire families cram into small bedrooms, and about 20 or so young men sleep on bunk beds in spartan dormitories. They gather once a day at a nearby Catholic church to share a meal.
Some have applied for visas to European countries, but few are optimistic their paperwork will come through as governments tighten restrictions on asylum seekers from Syria.
Instead, many are scratching together the 10,000 euro ($13,700) fee traffickers demand to smuggle them across the sea to Greece before they unite with relatives further north in Germany or Sweden. This treacherous route is not an option for the elderly and the 13 children staying at the Istanbul house.
Milad, a 24-year-old former conscript who deserted Assad's army after he was seriously wounded last year, is gloomy about his chances of raising the funds for passage to Europe.
Hit by shrapnel last June, he passes his time asleep or strengthening a withered right arm pockmarked with scars, embedded shards of metal and wounds still oozing pus.
"I was caught between two fires in a war that is not mine," says Milad, asking that his surname not be used. "I never wanted to leave my country. Now I can never go back."
EMPTY CAMP
In Midyat, an ancient town of conjoined sandstone houses, the Bandaks are among 500 or so Syrians staying in private homes belonging to Turkish Syriacs who left the area years ago.
All but two Syrian families have snubbed a camp opened last year for Christian Syrians on the grounds of Mor Abrohom.
Gleaming white tents, a hospital and a market stand behind barbed wire in a hollow where monks once raised barley, ready for up to 4,000 people should violence escalate in north Syria.
The Bandaks have languished in Midyat for nine months, their girls unable to attend school. Living off savings and help from the local church, the family awaits visas for Germany where Bandak's wife, Ninorta, has relatives.
Bandak, 48, a bespectacled goldsmith from Aleppo, said he had been determined to stay in Syria's largest city even after its Ottoman-era souk was destroyed and medieval citadel damaged.
The decision to leave came last spring when foreign fighters stopped a bus he had taken to Damascus and lingered over his ID card and his non-Muslim name, then accused him of collaborating with the state.
"I said I was a poor electrician, they let me go. I could not stop shaking. I thought of my daughters without a father."
He locked the family's possessions into one room of their apartment and hired a car to take them to the border with a few suitcases of clothes and a computer hard drive of family photos.
"We have had enough of war. Next time I go to Syria, I'll go as a tourist," Ninorta says.
Hardline Islamists are said to be behind attacks on Christians, spurred by politics or money.
In December, fighters abducted 12 Greek Orthodox nuns from the Christian stronghold of Maaloula.
Earlier in 2013, a Syriac Orthodox bishop and a Greek Orthodox bishop disappeared outside of Aleppo.
"Christians are targeted because they are perceived as being allied with Assad, but also because they are natural targets for religious fundamentalists," says historian William Dalrymple, who has written extensively about imperiled Christian communities in the Middle East, home still to 14 million Christians who trace their roots back two millennia.
Until the war, Syria was a relatively free place for Christian expression, a vestige of a wider Middle East that was more tolerant 50 years ago, Dalrymple says.
"Middle Eastern Christians are going through the period of their biggest decline, and it is irreversible," he said, pointing to the nearly 70 percent drop in Iraq's Christian population since the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Erol Dora, a Syriac and Turkey's first Christian lawmaker in a half-century, says those who leave the region are doing so as a last resort, after they have parted with property.
"By the time they leave, they have usually lost everything, even hope. Their trust that they can be safe again is gone."
HOLY MOUNTAIN
Amid the region's upheaval, Turkey has become a safe haven.
Tur Abdin, or Mountain of the Servants of God, is a high plateau situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Syriacs' second-holiest site after Jerusalem.
The centre of one of the world's oldest Christian traditions, some 80 monasteries, most in ruins, dot the landscape of dry scrubland and outcrops.
The arrival of Bandak and other Syriacs has helped swell church pews at Midyat's 1,600-year-old churches.
Poverty and violence between Turks and Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s reduced an already dwindling Syriac population in Tur Abdin to 2,500 from about 50,000 in 1950, said Heidi Armbruster, an anthropologist at the University of Southampton. Istanbul is home to 15,000 Syriacs.
In recent years, Turkey has sought to improve the plight of Syriacs, pledging to return confiscated monastic land and allowing the community to open its first school in 86 years.
Community leaders say Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has even extended an invitation to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Damascus, now in exile in Beirut, to return to Turkey, its seat since 37 A.D. before Turkey expelled it to Syria in 1925.
Bandak speaks a smattering of Turkish taught by his grandfather, Barsom, who abandoned his farm in the Turkish town of Siverek after his father was murdered by Muslim neighbors. Bandak still recalls the exact date Barsom fled: February 24, 1924.
On the wall of the home where Bandak stays is a simple oil painting, a triptych of a charred landscape with ghost-like figures. It depicts "Seyfo," the Year of the Sword in 1915, when historians say 250,000 Syriacs were slaughtered by Ottoman Turks during World War One.
Far greater numbers of Armenian Christians were also killed during that war in what both groups call genocide.
"Sometimes it seems as if it's one long, unending war," Bandak says. "We are like skeletons passing through this land."
by cptmarginal » Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:03 pm
Amman, JORDAN (April 24, 2014) — The announcement of a new refugee camp to open in Jordan is sad but significant, says World Vision. The Jordanian Government and UNHCR have announced that a new refugee camp will open at the end of April. Azraq camp, located approximately 60 miles east of Amman, has the capacity to host up to 130,000 people. If it grows to that size, it would be one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
"It is heartbreaking that three years after this conflict started, the situation is still causing children and their families to have to cross borders to flee to safety," said Conny Lenneberg, World Vision's regional leader for the Middle East. "It's desperately sad that we need to open another camp, but it's significant that the UN and Jordanian Government are able to provide this service."
The decision comes as the Syrian crisis continues to grow as it enters its fourth year, with no end in sight. Approximately 600 people enter Jordan as refugees every day, fleeing the violence andseeking basic necessities like food and water, as/while aid organizations continue to encounter so many obstacles to reaching them inside Syria. Za'atari camp, Jordan's primary refugee camp, is already home to nearly 100,000 people. More than 450,000 refugees are living outside of camps in communities around the country, many without access to basic services.
World Vision is one of 22 agencies working on preparations in Azraq camp. The organization has built water and sanitation infrastructure to meet the needs up to 30,000 people. The agency welcomes the camp opening to provide a safe space for new arrivals, particularly those with children, but stresses that given the increase in numbers of refugees into Jordan and the protracted nature of the Syrian crisis, there needs to be renewed attention to supporting the Government of Jordan as it works to come up with longer term solutions.
"The journey from Syria can be long and distressing. World Vision and our partners have been working hard to ensure that this new camp is as safe, clean and comfortable for families as possible," said Lenneberg. "But of course, we wish there was no need for children to live in camps, or for refugees to be having to flee on such a massive scale. We want this conflict to end. We want peace for Syria."
Jordan is one of the world's most water-scarce countries, and, much like Za'atari, the environment at Azraq is dry, dusty and desolate. The government, United Nations and aid agencies have designed the camp with safety, comfort and cultural considerations in mind. The camp has been separated into villages. Families will live in shelters, not tents, and there will be more water and sanitation facilities per family than were initially available at Za'atari. Schools and playgrounds have already been built for children.
"It means a lot to us to get this right," said Lenneberg. "But three years in, the fact remains that more needs to be done to put an end to this hideous conflict, peacefully, so that no more children need to flee the country they love so much."
The opening of the camp comes as the heads of all major United Nations organizations are calling for an end to the violence and humanitarian access for aid organizations that have so often been blocked from reaching vulnerable people in-urgent need within Syria. Much of the humanitarian response to the conflict remains underfunded, despite UN estimates that more than 9.3 million people are urgently in need of assistance.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:58 pm
Where ISIS Is Gaining Control in Iraq and Syria
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — the Sunni jihadi organization that was once part of Al Qaeda — has effectively gained control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria over the past year. UPDATED June 11, 2:23 p.m. Related Article
By SARAH ALMUKHTAR, NATASHA PERKEL, ARCHIE TSE and KAREN YOURISH
Sources: Caerus Associates, Long War Journal
by Peachtree Pam » Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:10 am
LATAKIA:
Kasab:
SyrPer has told its readers that the border crossing at Al-Sakhra was liberated. The scene described there was “shocking” as burnt bodies and vehicles stood as testament to the unbelievable emptiness of Jihadism and the treachery of Erdoghan’s minions at the border. All terrorists who sought refuge from the SAA onslaught were denied entry into Turkey – even those who were mortally wounded. Only those who carried proof of Caucasus origin were permitted to enter. As we told you yesterday, the terrorists are moving to Idlib’s Waadi Al-Ghaab where they will face certain death at the hands of waiting SAA and NDF sharpshooters.
The Syrian army is now moving out of this area toward Eagle Mountain to clean up any traces of terrorist infestation.
Via Wikimapia: http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=35.89 ... 2&z=13&m=b
Army operations eliminate terrorists in several areas
While moving south to Eagle Mountain, Syrian infantrymen were directed to a warehouse where they found the following weapons and materiel:
20,000 CAPTAGON capsules along with hundred of syringes and vials of antibiotics and pain killers
Gas masks and canisters of chlorine gas
Propane canisters
P-10 Rockets
107 IEDs loaded with C-4
French Anti-armor mines
French Anti-personnel mines
Hellfire Cannons
Kornet anti-tank launchers and rockets
Konkurs 9M113 anti-tank launchers and rockets manufactured in Russia but bought by the Arabians
French-provided and manufactured Milan anti-armor Rockets and Launchers
14 Doschka anti-aircraft cannons
100+ light assault weapons
6 night vision goggles
65 advanced satellite communication equipment with Zionist markings
2 Turk ambulances complete with resuscitation equipment
13 Grad rockets and launchers
Nusra banners
Saudi Arabian military rations (really awful tasting – flavored with bananas)
American field mattresses and sleeping bags
WE, AT SYRPER, MUST STAND AT ATTENTION IN THANKS TO THE SAUDI ARABIAN MONKEYS WHO WERE SO KIND AND GENEROUS IN SUPPORTING OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE FORCES. WE MUST ALSO NOT FORGET TURKEY, FRANCE AND THE ZIONIST GHETTO STATE FOR THEIR EQUALLY GENEROUS CONTRIBUTION TO OUR DEFENSE FORCES. WE HAIL YOU AND PRAY YOU WILL SEND US MORE WEAPONS AND AMMUNITION.
Read more at http://www.syrianperspective.com/2014/0 ... 6kukMP7.99
by seemslikeadream » Sun Jul 27, 2014 6:17 pm
This Was the Syrian Civil War's Bloodiest Week Yet — And You Probably Heard Nothing About It
Eleanor Stanford's avatar image By Eleanor Stanford July 25, 2014 SHARE TWEET
War's Bloodiest Week Yet — And You Probably Heard Nothing About It Image Credit: Getty Images
In the last week, 1,700 people died in Syria, making it the deadliest seven days since the conflict started three years ago. Of those casualties, 700 died in two days. Experts say this week marks a shift in the pattern of fighting, as opposition groups increasingly fight each other, leading to higher death tolls.
And yet, when you think of the heartbreaking and significant news reported in the last week, the death toll in Syria doesn't spring to mind. But this week has left civilians even more vulnerable, and the world should be paying attention.
Image Credit: Getty Images. A Syrian boy reportedly injured by a Syrian government air strike, July 22.
So what has happened?
President Bashar al-Assad was sworn in for a third term on July 16. This followed a landslide election six weeks earlier, in which Assad won 90% of the vote. The opposition and its Western allies called this a farce, as voting had only been held in government-controlled areas. Assad's new term will run another seven years.
Image Credit: Getty Images. Election campaign poster for Assad in Damascus, May 11.
Speaking on his election day from the presidential palace in Damascus, Assad claimed victory over the rebels. "Syrians, three years and four months … have passed since some cried 'freedom,'" he said. "They wanted a revolution, but you have been the real revolutionaries. I congratulate you for your revolution and for your victory."
What followed his "victory speech" was the most intensive fighting on the streets of Damascus for many months.
Outside the capital, the biggest blow to the government was the capture of the large Shaar gas field, east of Homs by IS (Islamic State) fighters following two days of heavy fighting. A clip in a BBC report containing images "too graphic to be shown uncensored" shows the bodies of 250 government soldier killed by rebel fighters in this battle alone.
In several areas this week, rebel groups have fought each other, which leads to further vulnerability for Syria's civilian population. IS is expanding and continues to claim religious authority over all Muslims. In so doing and as it works to consolidate its territory in the east, it comes up against rebel factions like Jabhat al-Nusra.
IS is "on a real tear," according to Joshua Landis, Middle Eastern expert on Syria Deeply. "There's also been a lot of fighting among the more moderate militias, because everyone is jockeying for territory — they want to get their own states."
When Islamic State in Syria and the Levant (ISIL) announced the creation of a formal Islamic state at the end of June, in the process changing its name to IS, it created a domino effect for other rebel groups to scramble for territory in northern Syria, Landis said.
All of this is terrible news for civilians. The BBC reported 230 civilian deaths in shelling by the regime this week. Where once they were fleeing fighting between Assad's regime and jihadist groups, the violence between the various rebel groups means the danger is now more widespread.
Image Credit: Getty Images. Fighters from Islamic Front drive past damaged buildings in Aleppo, July 21.
"Civilians have increasingly limited prospects between leaving the country or being caught in the crossfire," Middle East scholar Andrew Bowen told Syria Deeply.
The UN recently appointed Italian diplomat Staffan de Mistura as a new mediator for Syria, after his predecessor resigned in frustration over the ineffectiveness of international attempts to resolve the conflict. As fighting between disparate groups, as well as rebel and government forces, intensifies, to say de Mistura has his work cut would be an understatement.
So this week was marked by not only violence, but also increased fragmentation and complication in Syria's civil war. This is the time for the international community to increase, rather than decrease, focus on Syria. This civil war is only intensifying, and with it uncertainty over the future of the Middle East.
by seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:59 am
by seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:07 pm
More US Troops Headed to Iraq; Senate Bill Would Expand War to Syria
White House Insists No Decision Made on Attacking ISIS in Syria
by Jason Ditz, September 02, 2014
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President Obama has signed off on yet another deployment of ground troops to Iraq today, agreeing to send another 350 troops to the capital city of Baghdad to protect “American diplomatic facilities” across the city.
It is the first announcement of new ground troops deployed to the country in about a week, and one of several over the past month and a half as the US builds up its military presence in both Baghdad and Irbil.
So far the US ground troops haven’t engaged in any direct combat in the war with ISIS, and the US has simply launched airstrikes against them to set up Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Shi’ite militias’ ground operations.
The continued escalation suggests that’s probably not going to be true in the long run, or that at the very least the administration recognizing the likelihood of transitioning into a ground war.
And perhaps transitioning into other countries. Sen. Bill Nelson (D – FL) is pushing a new bill that would give the White House explicit authorization to expand the air war into neighboring Syria. Sen. Nelson insisted he wanted to ensure there was “no question” that the president could expand the war as he sees fit.
The White House declined to express any position on the legislation, insisting no decision has yet been made on attacking ISIS inside Syria. Officials have previously indicated they don’t really believe they need Congressional authorization for the war itself, and indeed no effort was made to get an authorization for the Iraq side of the conflict.
by conniption » Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:31 pm
counterpunch
(embedded links)
September 03, 2014
Media Myths and Distortions
More NATO Aggression Against Syria?
by RICK STERLING
Syria will be an important subject of discussion at this week’s NATO Summit meeting in Wales. The US and NATO powers will evaluate whether to expand air strikes against ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq & Syria) into Syria, whether to do it in cooperation with the Syrian government and whether to increase support to the “moderate” armed opposition. The US mainstream media and politicians have been beating the war drums with Republican Senator McCain calling for military escalation and Democratic Senator Feinstein criticising President Obama for being “too cautious”.
There has been little mention of the fact that it is one year since the highly publicized chemical weapons attack in the Ghouta outskirts of Damascus. The same elements who are pushing for “regime change” military action now were doing so one year ago. Since then, the case that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack has been effectively discredited. The diplomatically negotiated agreement to remove all Assad’s chemical weapons has been successfully implemented. One would think this would merit attention, but it has been widely ignored.
One good thing in the media this week is recognition that Libya is now in chaos. This is the country which was “liberated” by NATO bombing which led to the murder of President Ghadaffi and collapse of that government. Nine months ago a plurality of Libyans said they are worse off than before the regime change. It’s very likely that even more Libyans are unhappy with their externally imposed regime change today. Three years ago NATO members were congratulating themselves on the air war against Libya. Now they are hopefully more sober as it goes public that Libya is in chaos, the airport shut down, competing extremists fighting for dominance, with one faction enjoying themselves in the US Embassy swimming pool.
The Obama Administration is at another turning point where it may choose to escalate its aggression against Syria. Clearly Obama and team do not want to go solo. The dreams of a“New American Century” with unchallenged US dominance have been broken by reality in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. But the hounds of war and aggression are noisy and persistent.
As NATO begins to deliberate whether and how to escalate aggression against Syria, let’s review some recent and long standing myths and lies about the Syrian conflict.
Myth #1.
Some articles and even the (current) Wikipedia entry for James Foley (journalist) claim that he was a prisoner of the Syrian military and that they turned him over to ISIS. This is in perfect keeping with the pervasive demonization of the Assad government. However it’s false. A serious investigation into the disappearance of Foley is in the May 2014 Vanity Fair. Foley was captured by Nusra Front (or allied rebels) in November 2012 and later transferred or sold to ISIS.
Myth #2.
Both NY Times’ Anne Barnard and John McCain suggest or assert that the Syrian government has collaborated with ISIS. The “evidence” of this is that the Syrian Army did not actively attack ISIS in eastern Syria during the past year.
The reality is that Syrian Army needs to pick and choose its battles and priorities. They are weakened by over three years intense conflict resulting in at least 65 THOUSAND Syrian army and militia deaths. For reference, the total US death count in Vietnam was 58 thousand and Syria today is one tenth the size of the US in the 1970’s. In the past year the Syrian military has focused on confronting armed opposition in Aleppo (the largest city), Homs, outer Damascus and the Lebanese border area. The Syrian military has gained ground in each of these areas along with implementing the national “reconciliation” policy.
In the past two months, ISIS has gone on the offensive in eastern Syria and is pressing towards Aleppo and central Syria with US equipment and weaponry captured in Iraq. The battles have taken a heavy toll on both ISIS and the Syrian military. According to rebel aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 346 ISIS fighters were killed in a four day assault on Tabqa Air Base near Raqqa. The fighting has been brutal with heavy losses on both sides.
Longtime Mideast journalist Patrick Cockburn writess, “A conspiracy theory, much favoured by the rest of the Syrian opposition and by Western diplomats, that Isis and Assad are in league, has been shown to be false.”
In contrast with the myth, ISIS has in fact been aided and abetted by US allies. This includes funds from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, ideology and recruitment by Saudi media, transportation and safe haven through Turkey.
Myth #3.
It is usually claimed that the Syrian conflict is a civil war that started with peaceful protests in 2011. In reality the seeds of the conflict were planted much earlier. General Wesley Clark’s 2007 memoir described plans for “regime change” in Syria and other countries. Also in 2007 Seymour Hersh documented the US strategy of fomenting conflict in Syria (and Iran) by working with Sunni extremists:
“The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
When mass protests began in Syria they included violent attacks and murders of police from the beginning. The situation was the same in other regions. Jesuit priest Father Frans Van Der Lugt was widely respected by Sunni Muslims and Christians in the Old City of Homs. He described the start of the protests thus:
“From the start, the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”
The conflict in Syria has been primarily instigated and continued by some of the world’s wealthiest and powerful governments. They make no secret and call themselves, with Orwellian chutzpah, the “Friends of Syria”. Their division of labor including who pays the salaries of the rebel mercenaries, who supplies communication equipment, who does training and who supplies weapons. Thus the conflict in Syria is primarily a war of aggression using domestic and foreign mercenaries.
Myth #4.
It is often suggested the “moderate opposition” is popular, democratic and secular.
President Obama has recently proposed giving $500 million to the “moderate opposition”.
Patrick Cockburn sums up the reality in the newly released book “The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising”:
“It is here that self-deception reigns, because the Syrian military opposition is dominated by ISIS and by Jabhat Al Nusra, the official Al Queda representative, in addition to other extreme jihadi groups. In reality there is no dividing wall between them and America’s supposedly moderate opposition allies.”
This siuation is not new. A NY Times article in summer 2012 discussed the hidden presence of Al Queda within the “Free Syrian Army”. When he read this, James Foley sent out a tweet linking to the article and pondering whether the photographed black flag was necessarily Al Queda. He did not recognize the flag and wondered whether it was “some misc jihadi group”. Ironically that was the unique flag of ISIS before it was widely recognized. The “misc jihadi” group is the one that would later murder him.
http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/ ... 10x321.jpg
foleytweet
Foley’s last article documented the overall unpopularity of the rebels in Aleppo:
“Aleppo, a city of about 3 million people, was once the financial heart of Syria. As it continues to deteriorate, many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition — one that is hampered by infighting and a lack of structure, and deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups.”
Myth #5.
Finally there is the myth that the Free Syrian Army and other “moderate opposition” groups were not supported. In reality, huge quantities of weapons and ammunition have flowed which is exactly what has allowed the terrorist organizations to continue the mayhem and bloodshed. Starting in November 2012 three thousand TONS of weapons and ammunition were flown from Zagreb to Turkey and then transferred to the Syrian rebels. In addition there were huge shipments from Benghazi Libya and more shipments paid by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
DO USA AND NATO REALLY WANT TO STOP ISIS?
One week after the Syrian Presidential election where 73% of the electorate turned out, ISIS made its advance through western Iraq to Mosul and other cities. There were virtually no battles. Iraqi military leadership simply departed and in the confusion troops fled or disbanded. Was this a military collapse or was it planned, with key Iraqi figures either bribed or otherwise in alliance with ISIS? Whichever is the truth,we can see the consequences and who has benefited: the campaign for greater autonomy in the oil rich Kurdish region has advanced; the split between Shia and Sunni has been exacerbated; and one of the world’s greatest overnight military arms transfers took place with ISIS effortlessly taking control of vehicles, humvees, tanks, lethal mortar launchers, high grade military equipment and tons of ammunition.
Did US military officers, who spent years and billions of dollars “training” the Iraqi military, have advance notice or knowledge of this seeming collusion between ISIS and Iraqi military officers? Did wealthy enemies of Syria simply bribe the Iraqi officers? Was it a “collapse” or is there much more behind this? How can a few hundred jihadi militants traveling in new Toyota pickup truck convoys surprise and overtake military checkpoints and bases without a fight unless there was collusion at the highest levels?
Actions reveal more than words. If the US and NATO really are worried about ISIS they can and will implement measures such as the following:
* shut down the Jihadi Highway through Turkey.
* shut down safe haven and supply routes of ISIS and other terrorist groups in Turkey
* provide useful information from surveillance flights to the Syrian army which is doing the main on-the-ground fighting
* demand and check that Saudi Arabia and Qatar stop broadcasting TV programs featuring hate speech which serve to recruit jihadis to join ISIS.
* demand and check that Saudi Arabia and Qatar implement measures to stop funding for ISIS through their banks and other financial operations.
Will the US and NATO take practical steps to counter ISIS or will they escalate their aggression against Syria, violating Syrian air space and looking for a pretext to impose a “no fly zone” as done in the disastrous aggressions against Iraq and Libya?
Will the US and NATO start a bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria which will ignite MORE support for the group in the Arab world?
Will they violate Syrian air space as a stepping stone to US bombing of Syrian army positions?
Or will the US and NATO resist the hounds of war and finally put aside the campaign of regime change against a secular, socialist inclined government that is supported by a big majority of its people?
Rick Sterling is a founding member of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com
by conniption » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:53 pm
by conniption » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:54 pm
conniption » Wed Sep 10, 2014 11:53 am wrote:looking for the next page.
long pages = slow going
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