Sun investigates the young Brit Muslims who've gone into battle against Syrian leader

The struggle in Syria is a revolution of dignity against a brutal dictatorship, not a holy war to establish an Islamic caliphate. It shouldn't take realising that you sound like the Sun to stop people on the left posing it in those terms. Some of my friends could point out that it is orientalist or Islamophobic to label those who want to help liberate the Syrian people as jihadists, I just think it's shit.
Found this in the recycling bin, as needed to clean up the urine in the lift for a second time today. I got into a conversation outside Asda with a guy about Syria, he thought it was complex and I didn't, he thought that the Americans arming the Mujahadin in Afghanistan was a bad precedent, I didn't, but thought it unsurprising that people getting bombed get radicalised, Islamically if they are that way inclined, and wanted to tell him as his bus came that that was much less of an issue in Syria than in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama ignores Syria’s
renewed chemical attacks"There are, of course, many actions Mr. Obama could take to punish Syria for its use of chemical weapons and to prevent their further deployment. He could begin by granting the opposition’s request for antiaircraft missiles to use against the helicopters that are dropping chlorine bombs. He could revive his plan to launch U.S. military strikes against Syrian infrastructure that supports those attacks."
I used to think we should balance the answer between yes for option A (arming the rebels), and no for option B (airstrikes). But largely the arguments against B have been to prevent any option being discussed, which allows Assad's only airstrikes to continue. And I never seemed to get a straight answer about what would be wrong with strikes against Assad's airforce, just a mélange of possible consequences: it would put Syria's destiny in imperialist hands (untrue, and it is not as if Syria wasn't in destructive imperialist hands already), that you couldn't predict what the airstrikes would escalate to (untrue, as they were going to be no more than token anyway, because the Americans weren't interested in changing Syria, they weren't going to escalate to shit, a belief confirmed by there being no airstrikes at all, disproving the belief that anyone was dragging us into a war), that it would exacerbate sectarian tensions across the Middle East (it is the continuation of the régime that has done so). And so while I still don't tend to think that option B is the answer, I don't think it is the problem. The problem is that waiting for the US to take action of its own may wait until that action can do no real good. But what is most important in the argument about Syria is whether people support the right of the Syrian people to defend themselves. Millions of Syrians have risen in revolt, it isn't a tiny minority of revolutionaries whose desires need to be related to, but a people and a country whose immediate need is to be able to stop the rain of terror from the skies. Whether you are helping the Syrian situation depends on whether you are arguing for such empowerment, other differences are secondary.

US JUDGE TEMPORARILY HALTS GUANTÁNAMO FORCE-FEEDINg
At last, a Syrian the anti-imperialists could risk caring about. Further background on his case:
[http://www.reprieve.org.uk/cases/abuwaeldhiab/]

Syria is Not a Stalemate

BY MOHAMMED ALAA GHANEM
"The moderate Syrian opposition maintains the capacity not only to win militarily, but also to transition into a post-Assad Syria for all Syrians. They are fighting ISIS, safeguarding the rights of minorities, and continuing their struggle against the Assad dictatorship. Even at this late stage, serious international support would decisively propel the moderate opposition to triumph. But time is running out. Misguided assessments of a "stalemate" in Syria only deceive the public into discounting the urgency of the situation. If mainstream rebels in Syria are defeated, radical extremist groups (including Hezbollah and ISIS) will turn Syria into a transnational terror launch pad."

#ChicagoGirl

"We need to show the world what the régime is trying to cover up."

Will There Ever Be Justice for Syria’s Rape Survivors?

Some of this may be quite upsetting.
"There is already a large body of evidence that rape is happening and that the Syrian government is aware of it and letting it continue. It remains to be seen whether evidence will turn up that shows the high command and the top political leadership ordered that sexualized violence be used as a weapon of war. Right now, the best plan is to keep gathering as many stories and as much forensic evidence as possible in the hope that governments, the ICC or a special tribunal will do something with it."

The Only Way Is Up

 Massive tunnel bomb hits Syrian army base
  --------------------------------------------------------

 "Rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad regularly carry out guerrilla attacks but have only started using large tunnel bombs in recent weeks on military targets, including a hotel used by soldiers in Aleppo last week.

 The government boasts far superior firepower and its forces killed more than 40 people, many of them civilians, in air strikes on Wednesday."
 [http://dailystar.com.lb/…/256540-massive-tunnel-bomb-hits-s…]

Syrian rebels cut off water to Aleppo in botched attack on regime areas - and manage to create shortage in their own strongholdsPatrick Cockburn turns in another pro-Assad report.
"Aleppo used to have a population of 2.5 million though at least one million have fled fighting."
They have overwhelming fled Assad's rain of terror.
"The government has been dropping barrel bombs packed with explosives on rebel districts causing heavy casualties and a further exodus of the population. The rebels have been firing mortars randomly into government areas."
These are supposed to be equivalent. There has been some limited shelling of government-controlled areas, which whenever it has been against civilian areas, has been condemned by much of the opposition. That's not like the mass murder of the government side.
"The forces of the opposition are dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra and other al-Qa’ida type groups."
Cockburn isn't interested in telling us about anyone else. And as they are fighting a war against the al-Qaida type Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that collaborates with Assad, who are the bin Laden's here?

Syria: Love and power across
Aleppo's front lines' "We'd be thanking God we only received 16 barrel bombs on the day, while on the other side they'd be complaining on Facebook about the price of tomatoes."
Debates about morality have come a long way since the uprising began, when any form of militarisation was frowned upon.
Today, while many activists are opposed to shelling civilian areas under regime control, they see actions such as cutting off electricity or water as mild punishment compared to their suffering.'

Syria conflict: 'Hundreds die
in government detention'' "The number of victims is increasing because there are no measures being taken to deter the regime," said the Observatory's director, Rami Abdul Rahman.'

The devil's in the details

Obama's "mission accomplished" message on Syria overlooks several inconvenient truths
"It scarcely matters that, as Syrian opposition member Mohammed Alaa Ghanem has written, there are ways to control these missiles remotely or that about 6,000 of them are currently in the hands of enemy non-state actors including Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, and Hezbollah. To Obama, the prospect of so much as 20 more going missing or winding up with jihadists outweighs the benefit of stopping the carnage of Assad’s barrel bombs."

Fathers of Revolution

Wendy Pearlman

How much more must Syrians pay for their uprising against the Assad government?
'Abu Ma’an wrestled with the decision to join the Free Syrian Army for a few months. “I hadn’t been convinced about the armed rebellion,” he explained. “But the regime was addicted to slaughter. From the rest of the world, all we saw was hesitation. They talked about freedom, but did nothing as we died. I realized there was no way to deal with this regime except force.” '

Deformed Babies Born In Syria
After Ghouta Gas Attack
“These distortions are the result of the chemical weapons used by the Syrian regime last August, said Mr Shaikhani. “Fatma was born congenitally deformed because of exposure to toxic gases and chemicals many times. She is the first case to be registered in the region since the beginning of the revolution. She died few hours after her birth.”

UN: Homs deal could be replicated
The UN, in the person of Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, are still planning to fuck the Syrians over. Homs has been destroyed, because that's the only way Assad has of waging his war on Syrians. To say that the country needs more deals whereby Assad is handed back control of a wasteland, in return for no longer starving the inhabitants, is an abomination.

Opinion: What’s behind the Egyptian
position on Syria’s war?"The Syrian uprising was and remained for at least 10 months entirely peaceful. It was the Syrian regime that chose to confront its own people with a violent crackdown, exploiting the guaranteed allegiances it had cultivated in the ranks of the army. As the regime intensified its crackdown and began waging a full-scale war on its people, it showed it had no qualms about killing civilians and destroying their cities and villages."

Times journalists escape after
kidnapping in northern SyriaTwo Times journalists have been kidnapped, beaten and shot at by a Syrian rebel gang
No, Martin Williams, not a "rebel gang." For two years, the Assad régime and the extreme Islamists have been kidnapping and murdering journalists in Syria, and the actual rebels have condemned this practice all along. It has meant that the destruction that Assad has wrought has gone unreported, while tame journalists who report from the government side are free to lie that the conflict is six of one and half a dozen of the other. If kidnappers disguise themselves as police, they aren't reported as a police gang. Buried lower in the story, we discover, "The pair did not escape until the Islamic Front, which was formed last year to counter extremists, heard the news and confronted the gang," but for many readers, the constant association of the Syrian revolution with the side of criminality is the only lasting impression left.

Talk Amongst Yourselves: The Great Anti-Debate

"Without discussing StW at great length, just this one post by Lindsey German makes it clear that the organisation conflates revolutionaries with jihadis, here smearing the Free Syrian Army with the accusation that ‘opposition’ fighters have used chemical weapons – claims that have been soundly debunked in the past. And while denying that StW are ‘Assad-apologists’, by referring to Assad’s ‘government’ rather than his regime, German legitimises a tyrant, a man who tortures and butchers his own people, starting with the children. "

Syria's revolution had too many enemies

 Simon Assaf

 I think this shows deficiencies in Simon's politics, not seeing that there are revolutionaries in their millions, but restricting the term to those who agree with the SWP.

 "For now the revolutionaries have been sidelined."

 Asking for arms is not the same as to put your faith in the providers. How the 'revolutionaries' could have prevented their eclipse is not explained.

 "Those who put their faith in the West, or in the militias funded by the Gulf kingdoms that eclipsed the lightly armed revolutionaries, discovered that their interests were not those of the revolution."

 There was no threat of a Western invasion, it was a hoax to stop us caring about Assad's chemical attacks. Yes the American government doesn't seem to want to help, but rejecting any pressure on them to provide aid, and to pretend that Syrians are better off with no help at all, is ridiculous abstentionism.

 "Every threat of Western intervention weakened the revolution further. Imperialism had little to gain from the revolution, and despite the talk of “intervention and aid” was always hostile to the uprising."

 Or: the battle against ISIS has helped regain the anti-jihadi soul of the uprising, and those Saudi-funded forces have a shit load more popular support than wailing that nothing can be done will ever have.

 "The war in Syria has becomes a many-headed conflict. In the north the battle with Iraqi dominated Al Qaida organisations has drained the resistance. In the south Saudi funded forces have made some battlefield gains, but not enough to lift the sieges on the capital’s working class districts, and with little hope of receiving genuine popular backing."

 So you back the struggle within the rebel forces against extremism. No? More wailing then.

 "The rise of the Islamists terrified the Christian and Druze minorities and reinforced sectarian fears among Allawis and Shia Muslims. They had little interest in defending the regime but much to fear from the Salafis who began to dominate the rebel forces."

 He's more negative than the BBC, who at least acknowledge the advances made by rebels in the North. Simon might find it difficult to explain if any of the anti-tank weapons provided by the US recently do make a difference.

 'The defeat of Homs follows the fall of a number of rebel towns and neighbourhoods, and the annihilation of many more. Homs has become a symbol of the retreat of the revolutionary forces.
Although in many areas the war has become a stalemate, Assad is “winning by inches”.'

 If Assad can't win, what can happen. Simon is at a loss.

 "Assad’s victories are hollow. He rules over a rump sectarian statelet at war with the majority of his population, and with little real prospect of reconquering the rest of Syria."

 The comment that offering more to the Kurds would have been a good idea is about the only thing in this piece which adds to the debate at all.

 "The revolutionaries weakened their hand by dismissing the desire of Syria’s Kurdish minority for self rule."

The Hat of Invisibility

 Bostjan Videmsek interviews Yassin al-Haj Saleh, former political prisoner and one of Syria’s foremost intellectuals, on ‘civil war’, sectarianism, and the geo-political conspiracy theories which render the people of the Middle East invisible.Still less would he like the terms civil or sectarian proxy war, now part of the lexicon of those on the left who don't want to help.

 "I do not approve of words like ‘conflict’ and ‘crisis’ in describing our struggle. The connotations of these terms cover up the responsibilities of the terrible situation in Syria, that of a regime that had been ruling the country for 41 years when the revolution started 38 months ago, and that killed perhaps 40,000 Syrians in a previous generation (between 1979 and 1982). There are many ways to forget the Syrian struggle; one of them is to refer to a vague and distant conflict. I think the sort of symptomatic forgetfulness you refer to in the question is only a continuation by different means of the coverage which speaks about ‘conflict’ and ‘crisis’.

 Having said that that, life on the ground is affected by barrel bombs thrown from helicopters over civilian neighborhoods in Aleppo, by chlorine gas bombs thrown over people in Kafr Zeta near Hama, and by fighter jets bombing towns of the eastern Ghouta near Damascus. This affects life more than being forgotten by the international community, the media, and NGOs. People are not killed because they are forgotten. They were always forgotten in the past, then they revolted against their masters, and decided to remind all the world of their existence. They are being killed because they revolted, and they are being punished for their insistence on visibility by being forgotten again."

I carry Syria in my heart

 “I realize that not everyone has it in them to worry about Syria like I do, to keep her in their minds like I do. But that does not mean that I will stop speaking of her, nor will I stop writing about her. I will keep her in my thoughts, dreams and prayers, every day until the war is over, and then some.”

This Is Syria's Third Largest City"Homs is our land, we don't want any other, we sacrifice everything for it. By God, it's very difficult for us to leave, God willing we will return here victoriously. For Homs is ours, every stone here testifies to that."
[http://freehalab.wordpress.com/…/…/08/and-when-i-leave-homs/]

Exclusive: Kerry Told Syrian Rebels ‘We Wasted a Year’ in Fight Against Assad

 "It’s been well reported that Kerry has been frustrated with the Obama administration’s Syria policy for a long time and has been advocating internally for more robust aid to the rebels, only to be stymied repeatedly by the White House."

 It was reported so with Hillary Clinton too. Neither has gone to the mat over it, so I suspect this is as much the case of wanting to have been seen to be taking a stand, while the actual decision goes the other way.

Serpents

Life in Cold Blood - episode 4 - Sophisticated Serpents
"Red and black, venom lack; red and yellow can kill a fellow."
David Attenborough teaches us the difference between the non-venomous king snake, and the venomous coral snake.
Robert Fisk thinks* there is so much hypocrisy from the West about polls that we shouldn't be so cynical about President Assad's upcoming re-election.
I saw the picture of Michelle Obama with the sign, "My husband has killed more schoolgirls than Boko Haram ever could", and initially thought it was very good, but then thought back to how horrifying that the similar response last August to Assad's chemical attack was to post memes of Hillary Clinton or John Kerry with some hilarious comment about how they were hypocrites because the US used chemical weapons in Vietnam.
*[http://www.independent.co.uk/…/why-dictators-hold-elections…]

The Opinions of the people in Aleppo concerning the presidential elections 2014 in Syria

The Opinions of the people in Aleppo concerning the presidential elections 2014 in Syria"After more than 200,000 killed, and more than three years since the beginning of the Syrian revolution. Bashar Al-Assad who inherited rule from his father, decided to be nominated for another presidential elections. The Syrian people is making fun of this elections. This is a sample of opinions for some people in Aleppo."

Found: the bombs that delivered
Syria's chlorine gas

A reporter who reached Kfar Zita in central Syria after chlorine bomb attacks by the Assad regime found remnants of bombs used, now stored by the survivors
'According to a source close to the OPCW mission based in Damascus, it is “almost impossible to collect evidence on the use of chlorine bombs for us staying in regime-controlled territory”.'
Then go to where the weapons were used. Or are you just cover to prevent Assad from being punished for his chemical attacks?

David Swanson's Dream

David Swanson's Dream

"All of these bogus theories of David Swanson, Sy Hersh and Ray McGovern are predicated on their thesis that Obama actually supports the rebels and wants to see Assad overthrown. Obama still refuses to support the creation of a no-fly zone or even allowing modern air defense systems, MANPADS, in the hands of the opposition. Is this how you support an overthrow?"

Benghazi

 'How easy it is for some to cackle now about what a "mess" Libya is today, post Qaddafi, which saw 643 people killed in 2013, and forget about the horror it was under Qaddafi, or the bloody course he was undertaking, and that is the right word, before the UN and NATO intervened to put an end to his air assaults and curtail his artillery bombardments. To see a full exposition of what Qaddafi had in mind for Libya we need look no further than Syria, where Assad and his friends have enjoyed a free hand to suppress the rebellion by any means available. Assad is reported to have used poison gas to kill some 30 times since the August sarin attack with no new international sanctions. Syrians haven't enjoyed the protection of an internationally imposed "no-fly" zone and they haven't been allowed access to modern anti-aircraft weapons, so Assad has been able to use his air force with impunity. The estimated 30,000 lives lost in the war to rid Libya of Qaddafi now recedes into the shadows of the rising toll of the murderous Assad's attempt to cling to power.'

 Many liberals who remember the war in Iraq claim that Syria is just confusing, and the only sensible course of action is to stay well out. Such inaction has just meant that the cancer of an inoperative dictatorship has spread its infection throughout Syria and beyond. Some of those liberals who style themselves as anti-imperialists go further and need to lie grievously about what is going on there. Along with Seymour Hersh's offensive claim that Turkey was responsible for the gas attack in August and not the actual culprit Assad, he also says that the Americans set up a 'rat line' from Benghazi to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels. Clay Claiborne shows here that the opposite is the case, that the US has been collecting anti-aircraft weapons (manpads), and stopping them getting to Syria.

 We're frequently told by the media that Assad is immovable, and that military support to the opposition will only serve to rile the Russians. This leads to a fantasy that things could settle down with Assad in power. It is a fantasy because he ignores the millions who won't consent to live under Assad's rule again, who Assad would not allow to live if his rule goes on. While he remains the flow of refugees, the breaking down of Syrian society, and the sense of betrayal that Syrians feel for a West which could have provided the means for them to free themselves but did not, will only increase.

 If the rebels get manpads, the régime's airforce will not be able to bomb civilians. It will be Assad who has no strategy and demonstrably no future. That is the demand that left-wing people and anyone else of good will should be placing on our governments, not whining about how Western interference never solved anything, and conflating support for the Syrian rebels with a re-enactment of the Iraq invasion. It is possible to do some politics without addressing the most important international issues of the day, but when I see people talk about regrouping the left in this country, and they don't think Syria even matters, they will find that their omission shows for others their irrelevance to a politics that matters.