Anxious time for Syria's Christians

 This report was introduced on the News channel with, 'Syria's Christians are being increasing targeted', and it is not true. Assad deliberately bombs civilians, this is a much smaller, and somewhat indiscriminate response, which has now been condemned by many of the major rebel factions. Lyse Doucet talks about the Jesuit priest who has now been killed in Homs without hinting that his opposition was to Assad. The idea that when one mortar round falls, "there is no peace now, just daily violence," is utterly disproportionate to those Syrians, mostly Sunni Muslims, who are being killed and starved. There is one line, "Syria's Christians say they are not the only ones being targeted", which could point to the reality, but it here just enables the BBC to cover all bases.

Bombs and ballots

 'Bombs and shells are not the only ways in which the Damascus government is ratcheting up the pressure on the rebels and on the civilians who live, most of them not by any conscious choice, in rebel areas.'

 This suggests that most people are indifferent to the choice between the régime and revolution and it is not true. When you live in fear of torture or bombs you aren't free to express that choice, and the barrel bombs are because Assad has no chance of winning hearts and minds.

 'The countries helping the rebels need to reconsider their options. They could shift the military balance by giving the rebels more weapons or by using western air power. They could go on to try to revive the so far barren diplomatic process. Or they can accept that the Syrian government is going to achieve some kind of victory.'

 Only option A is a solution.

Non-Intervention in Syria Was a Grave Mistake

 'Horrors of this sort would not have come about had Britain and her allies intervened when the biggest rebel forces belonged to the Free Syrian Army.'

 I don't think any military action is better than none, but the belief that we should stop intervention at all costs was always going to mean intervention would happen anyway when the destruction had become much more severe.

Why Assad can have confidence in his survival

 'Equally, military victory by the fractious and feuding rebel groups is now a distant dream. Some of their regional backers may still want it, but the Western powers which pull many of the strings behind the scenes never did anyway.'

 So the Western powers don't really want to support the rebels, I'd agree. That a flow of arms could not change things now when it could have before, I don't agree. That as the situation gets worse, it isn't possible that they will be forced to do the right thing, I don't agree. And to claim that Assad remaining is a feasible alternative I don't agree, because the impossibility of his ever ruling over most Syrians means every day he remains, he kills more Syrians and makes more flee the country, because that is the only war he can fight.

 'That crisis [Ukraine] has given the Russian President Vladimir Putin strong motivation to assert himself against the Americans over Syria rather than go along with them.'

 Or the Russians don't need to fight on a second front.

 'But in the absence of those conditions [opposition unity but exclusion of Jabhat al-Nusra and the like], it is hard to imagine the Americans and others giving the green light for a serious infusion of the kind of quality weapons - such as MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles and much more - that the rebels need if they are to stand a chance of tilting the balance back in their favour.'

 Maybe when Assad has massacred another few tens of thousands the calculation will change again.

 'Once the heat is off, there may be a reckoning from elements currently loyal to the leadership who have paid a high price for its brutal blunders.'

 This is wishful thinking from Jim Muir. Such a palace coup would continue the régime of torture without Assad.

Kidnapped French journalists released 10 months after abduction in Syria

 'The objective of Isis is to establish an Islamic state in the land it controls in northern Syria and is often in conflict with other rebels as well as the government.'

 The last part is not true, they are rarely if ever in conflict with the government, their headquarters in Raqqa is never bombed by Assad's airforce, which has civilians to drive out of the country. Hopefully this is a result of ISIS' weakening, and there will be more to follow.

Peter Oborne has been a fan of Syria’s genocidal dictator for some time

 'That Peter Oborne has been a fan of Syria’s genocidal dictator for some time is clear... Oborne suspects that some of the accounts of the government’s dreadful atrocities “have been exaggerated”; would that include the evidence of the Assad regime’s systematic mass torture and starvation until death of over 11,000 Syrian men, women and children?..

 It is outright dishonest of Oborne to claim that “jihadist groups make up the opposition” when the Free Syrian Army, formed initially by brave defecting soldiers who refused to carry out Assad’s orders to kill their compatriots, is the only force actually fighting the very jihadists of ISIS who the Assad regime never attacks...'

More Regime Chemical Attacks in Hama Province on Friday?

 'Footage has also been posted of suffering infants.'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL6CGoyF8YQ]

 Anyone who mistakes this for the stories of Iraqis ripping babies from incubators in Kuwait in 1991 is doing these actual victims a disservice.

Ukaine and Imperialism

 'Syria remained a key Russian ally. Russia had troops stationed in Syria, and supplied Al-Assad with weapons to put down the revolution. At this point, the Stop the War Coalition argument that “the real enemy is at home” slogan was appropriate ceased to be a principled anti-imperialist position, and became nothing more than apologism for Putin’s Russia and the regimes he supports. This is not internationalism, as the real enemy for the people of Syria was not the US, but Al-Assad and the Russian state backing him.'

US Ambassador Power slams ‘industrial-style slaughter’ in Syria

 Samantha Power says what is happening, and Fox News reports it, while much of the Left buries its head in the sand.

'She described the photos of Syrian prisoners as showing “systematic, industrial-style slaughter and forced starvation killings” – photos which, she noted, were from just three of the 50 Syrian-run detention centers. “And to that we can add the Syrian victims of chemical weapons attacks, the children felled by barrel bombs and those being starved to death in besieged towns and villages, or those executed by terrorist groups.” '

The one certainty about Syria's looming election

 'The number of Syrian refugees is now close to nine million, more than six million of whom remain internally displaced in opposition-held areas, with little chance of getting to a government office to register, even if they wanted to.'

 I'm reminded of this: 'Dall'Oglio warned that ''let's imagine for a second that, even with the decisive help of Christians, the regime manages to crush the revolution. We can predict there will be some 500,000 dead and 10 million refugees. What remains of our Christian testimony? Even if Christians were to return - an unlikely prospect - to Syria, what would we go back to doing after having accepted such a genocide?'' '
[http://ansamed.ansa.it/…/Father-Oglio-book-the-Syrian-trage…]

Brighton teenager Abdullah Deghayes killed in Syria

 "He couldn't sit still watching the news of the gross injustice taking place in Syria. For Abdullah it was not enough to just donate money or baby milk, he felt he needed to do more."

Why does the mass media ignore mass murder in Syria?

 'One of the best indications this is the mainstream media's policy came this week when the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition traded accusations over who was using poison gas again in Syria. This should be a big news story for the mainstream media but it has raised hardly a murmur.

 The media paid attention to Syria as never before after the 21 August sarin attack because it involved Obama's called bluff and it showed the bodies as never before. As if a hundred thousand people had not been slaughtered already by non-chemical means, the media jumped all over the chemical attack as though it was a fetish. The shameless pro-Assad forces in the blogosphere took up the defense of Assad as if proving he didn't do the sarin attack was the same as exonerating him of mass murder. Even while the media failed to report on Assad's continuing siege of Ghouta, using both bombardment and starvation as weapons, they gave coverage for everybody's opinions and findings on the chemical attack.

 There can be little doubt that there have been new chemical attacks in Syria, since both sides agree there have been. While they both predictively point the finger at get other, if the reports that the gas bombs there dropped out of helicopters are accurate, there can be little doubt that those were Assad regime helicopters. Given the history of coverage on the chemical question in Syria, one would expect reports of a new chemical attack to break through this news blackout.

 Why hasn't it?'

Syrian rebels warn of potential Homs massacre as regime troops advance

 "The regime has reduced what was the soul of the revolution to rubble and ruin. The international community must watch to ensure the regime does not massacre the remaining brave people left in the Old City."

British jihadists in Syria are playing into Assad's hands

 'Syrians clearly have the right to defend themselves against Assad's brutal response to what began as peaceful calls for democracy. And, notwithstanding the moral and practical preferability of nonviolent struggle, an argument can be made that only force could ever topple a regime with a core as formidably solid as this one.'

 I was pleasantly surprised by how much I agreed with David Wearing's piece. A lot of people in the pro-solidarity crowd will dispute his assignment of a low probability to the idea that the worst Islamist group is a régime tool (and the claim needn't be that strong, if there isn't control, that they never attack each other shows commonality of interest). He doesn't address the question of the more secular groups receiving the arms they need, and, "those wealthy states who were agitating for military intervention last autumn", just isn't true, the trips to Congress and parliament to pass the buck were to enable Obama and Cameron to appear to have done what they could, without risking any political capital in trying to do anything whatsoever about Assad's mass murder with chemical weapons. And the real military intervention in Syria is by Russia and Iran and Hezbollah, blah, blah, blah.

 But the rest is good.

Talking about the presidential elections is ridiculous

 'Given that Assad does not accept any political transition process and will not too, Sabra says that “there seems no solution other than toppling Assad with the force of weapon”.'

Many war crimes documented in Syria

 "Outside military intervention is necessary. This should include, in his view, the enforcement of a no-fly zone to prevent regime attacks on civilians, and arming the opposition."

And these war crimes are much better documented than any genocide in history.

Behind Assad's victory boasts

 “I'm not sure that Assad would want to expend the time or effort to reconquer those parts of Syria whose inhabitants he largely holds in contempt.”

 You can't remain a legitimate president forever when your strategy is to make a desert and call it peace.

Maaloula's monastery destroyed after Assad forces drive rebels out

 ' "Imad, said there had been 32 churches in Maaloula and claimed that "all of them have been destroyed" - although it was clear from the vantage point near the monastery that in fact churches were still standing, albeit with signs of damage and some burning.

 I can't describe my feelings because the terrorists are destroying the Christian religion," said Imad, who said he had been an electrician in Maaloula before he joined the military and the rest of his family moved to Damasacus two years ago.'

 He was probably a plumber.

Jordanian warplanes destroy vehicles trying to cross from Syria

 'Jordanian security source says targets were Syrian rebels in civilian cars mounted with machine guns.'

 Those can't be the 'Western-backed' rebels, because there aren't any. Actually an unnamed Western country had provided an FSA brigade with 20 anti-tank weapons, hardly making up for the weapons the US has stopped going through Jordan, while the Russians continue to supply as much weaponry as Assad can pay for.

Women Rock the Syrian Revolution

 'The two largest coalitions of grassroots groups that organise the protests in Syria are led by women.'

 One of them, Razan Zaitouneh, said this of the responsibility for the August chemical attack, on a show with Patrick Cockburn, which may be why he hasn't found himself going fully denialist.

 RAZAN ZAITOUNEH: This is—if this is the question—first of all, if you believe that we are a crazy people who would kill themselves and their children, then you can ask such a question.

 AMY GOODMAN: Did you—since you were in the area, was there any physical evidence that you saw that the government was responsible for this?

 RAZAN ZAITOUNEH: That the rockets which was used for the shelling coming from the regime forces, it’s clear. There is no doubt about it. And why wondering? The Syrian people killed hundreds of people when the Arab observers mission was there, and they turned a blind eye to it. So what made you think that? After 100,000 victims and after all that crimes committed by the regime, the regime is not able to do anything to stay in power.
[http://www.democracynow.org/…/syrian_activist_on_ghouta_att…]

Talal Derki's 'Return to Homs' wins Middle East Now

 ' ''Syria is not just Assad or Al-Qaeda. Don't be fooled by the Syrian president's words, because the choice is not between him and religious extremists. There are moderates in the country and they account for about 70% of the population, but nobody is interested in them. No one - and especially not the media - speak about them, since they don't make a good news story." '

Note 9/3/25, link broken.

The moral depravity of our Syria policy

 I think Jennifer Rubin is not someone I would agree with on much, but I think it is true that there never was any intention to use force in Syria, and Obama and Cameron got their legislatures to alibi the deception.

 'Power really must be pulling our leg when she said that the president put out the “credible threat of military force.” Yes, he did. And then looked to Congress to bail him out. And then did not use the threat of force. If this is “credible,” then the word has no meaning.'

A Mixed Record

 'In 1974, Hersh wrote that the US envoy in Chile was warned of the coup against Allende before it happened. Years later, Hersh apologized and said what he wrote wasn’t true. A book he wrote on former US President John F. Kennedy contained several inaccuracies. In 2004, Hersh said he documented information that George W. Bush’s administration would launch a war on Iran. It turned out that none of this was true. During the US occupation of Iraq, Hersh said that 1 billion US dollars had disappeared and that a television station was under threat of being excluded from press briefings because it had asked embarrassing questions of then-First Lady Laura Bush. None of these claims were proven true.

 The truth is, he who desires to examine the man’s achievements will find plenty of them, and he who wants to examine the man’s failures will not be disappointed either. It’s necessary to remember this when reading Hersh’s recent piece on Syrian chemical weapons—he based his report on what he described as a single “well-informed” source, without presenting any document, photo or even official report."

86'd

 'A top Iranian military officer has said Tehran managed to fend off a campaign by 86 countries to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.'

 [https://web.archive.org/web/20140415093455/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Apr-15/253354-iran-defeated-plans-of-86-countries-guard-officer.ashx#axzz2ywmo0ZzI]

 The US are saying this:

 'The United States on Monday took issue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's analysis that the bitter conflict was turning in his favor, saying it had become a "war of attrition."

 "Our analysis remains what it has been, that this is a war of attrition and neither side has been able to deliver or hold onto significant gains," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

 She told reporters that she was not "going to give ground game updates. Certainly our efforts to engage with the opposition continue." '

 [https://web.archive.org/web/20140415090654/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Apr-14/253344-neither-side-holds-upper-hand-in-syria-us.ashx#axzz2ywmo0ZzI]

 Mazen Syrian in Homs has had this to say this morning:
aircraft in Homs' sky
and
Launchers mounted on the edge of every streets, the shelling has not slowed since the morning, stray bullets everywhere, sounds are terrible....
‪#‎Homs_Now‬

Syrian Doctor In Cary Pushes For Free Syria

 'They are not ashamed of anything. You could kill someone in Syria and nobody would question that...

 As a revenge they executed him along with a number of people with no trial...

 What you and you family speak about, what you don't do in front of strangers; you speak one thing to one person, another thing to another person, and everybody learns how to live this double life...You are always afraid that someone will report that you've said the wrong thing...
I was preparing a sign for Libya, and the Syrian revolution started, so I did two parts of it, Down With Assad, and Down With Gadaffi; and a friend of mine who's an American woman, who helped write it, her name's Annette Stevenson, who never heard about the whole thing, helped write the sign...

 We were full of hope that it would last a few months, and Assad would be gone...

 I never thought that three people could meet in Syria and say Down With Assad...

 To have people go out and say, "we want freedom", it was a dream...

 Children wrote on the walls, "we want freedom", and the government arrested them , tortured them, pulled their nails out, and people reacted...

 It's becoming more complicated. Most Syrians were hoping the international community would help us much sooner....

 We're not asking about American soldiers to be on the ground, or American life to be put in jeopardy. I don't want the United States to be in a bad position, but at the same time, to have people by hundreds of thousands getting killed, two million refugees, families torn apart; if you can help, at least change the equation on the ground, whatever it takes, whether providing political support, military support, defensive weapons at least; we can liberate ourselves, and that is what we are asking for.'

Allies must honour weapons 'promises'

 'But without heavy, particularly anti-aircraft, weapons, Mr Jarba faces an uphill struggle to defeat President Assad, and that is a goal to which he is implacably committed, our correspondent adds.

 "Syrians, after paying this price for freedom, won't allow this stupid man to rule them once again - whatever the price is," Mr Jarba said.'

A rebel with a cause

 'Maarouf, 39, is an example of the younger generation of commanders in the bottom-up Syrian revolution. The previous Free Syrian Army leader in the north, Gen Salim Idriss, was a thoughtful, German-educated former professor at a Syrian war college. By contrast, Maarouf is high-school graduate who served in a tank unit during his two-year mandatory service in the Syrian army and then worked in construction in Lebanon.'

Reports of poison gas attack in Syria so far 'unsubstantiated', Powers says

 One of the claims made by the Sarin left is that the claims of wrongdoing by the Assad régime are propaganda emanating from the US State Department, so I note yet again that the US are responding, or not responding, to reports of what has happened, not originating them. A few people talking about the CIA and false flags in the comments, including one promoting Seymour Hersh's LRB piece. I see that Aboud Dandachi has been replying to such comments in various places on the internet.

 The conclusion in this piece is that everything is murky, because the writer has not made any effort to find out what the detail of the case made by each side about the chemical attacks is, as far as I can see.

 Syria faces a lost generation of children because they have been made refugees by Assad, and are not getting schooling. "The biggest single problem remains the lack of a political solution to the crisis in Syria," that would be removing Assad and his régime.
[http://www.theguardian.com/…/syria-children-funding-lost-ge…]

Alternative Left Perspectives on Syria

 Danny Postel:

 'There is a fourth camp, however: a small but growing group of progressives who embrace the goals of the Syrian revolution. There are several shades within this camp – it includes Marxists, pacifists, feminists, Third Worldists and leftists of various sorts. Some support the armed struggle in Syria, others do not, standing instead with the nonviolence activists in Syria. But what unites this camp is its solidarity with the Syrian struggle for dignity, justice and self-determination.'

Syrian government blocking aid to millions of refugees

 The headline tells the simple truth; it isn't a few people, it isn't both sides, it isn't too complex to understand.

MI6, the CIA and Turkey's rogue game in Syria

 Bullshit from the off.

 'The US's Secretary of State John Kerry and its UN ambassador, Samantha Power have been pushing for more assistance to be given to the Syrian rebels. This is despite strong evidence that the Syrian armed opposition are, more than ever, dominated by jihadi fighters similar in their beliefs and methods to al-Qa'ida.'

 I saw John Kerry being questioned by senators on C-Span today, and he wasn't pushing for the arming of any rebels. He was saying that it is only through the Geneva process that peace will be achieved, and had sharp exchanges with John McCain, who has supported arming the Free Syrian Army with the weponry it needs. And weapons to the FSA do not strengthen al-Qaida linked groups, it is the lack of arms to the FSA that has drawn Syrians to groups that can get weapons. This descends far into fantasy when he mentions ISIS, the group that doesn't fight Assad, and other rebel groups have been trying to get rid of.

 'It may also be starting to strike home in the US and Europe that aid to the armed rebellion in Syria means destabilising Iraq. When Isis brings suicide bombers from across the Turkish border into Syria it can as easily direct them to Baghdad as Aleppo.'

 One thing Cockburn doesn't do is go along with the genocide denial over the chemical attacks. But he does like the theory that America was shipping weapons from Libya to the Syrian rebels, which is nonsense given their role in Jordan stopping the FSA from getting heavy weapons. He comes up with the usual arguments against arming the Syrians, including lies like this:

 'A problem here is that the secular moderate faction of committed Syrian opposition fighters does not really exist.'

 There will certainly not be one if the only people supplying arms are Saudi Arabia, and on a far greater scale, those who supply Assad. That Cockburn doesn't see Russian arms supplies as the creator of destabilisation and encouragement of jihadism, shows how little he cares about the actual dynamics of the conflict.

Emerging Trends in Syria

 I must read the rest of this:

 'The only coun­try that ben­e­fits the longer the Syr­ian cri­sis con­tin­ues is the US. This is due to the US con­stantly fail­ing in find­ing a loyal alter­na­tive to Basher al-Assad. The US from the very begin­ning has delayed all its solu­tions as it did not have a trusted alter­na­tive to al-Assad. The real rea­son for not inter­ven­ing directly in the coun­try is the fact that the US has failed to cul­ti­vate a loyal alter­na­tive. This is why the US and its allies have given al-Assad all the nec­es­sary cover to put down the upris­ing. The inva­sion of Libya was jus­ti­fied on the blood bath that was going to take place in Beng­hazi, Obama said: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atroc­i­ties in other coun­tries. The United States of Amer­ica is dif­fer­ent and as Pres­i­dent, I refused to wait for the images of slaugh­ter and mass graves before tak­ing action.” In Syria after mul­ti­ple mas­sacres the US, as well as the wider West has still refused to intervene.'

Note 10/6/25, link broken.

Obituary of an ‘Arabist’ who knew no Arabic

 'Rana Kabbani is everything Patrick Seale was not.

 When in 2006, she wrote openly to demolish Hafez Assad’s "Corrective Movement" that Seale had urged Bashar al-Assad to follow, and was banned from entering her country for that first critical article, Seale happily betrayed her stand, boarding planes bound for Damascus to dine with Assad, whom he continued to defend till his last breath. He never tired of belittling Kabbani’s far greater knowledge, or showing disdain for the refined and destroyed Middle East that had produced her, as it had so many highly-educated and erudite individual Arabs from liberal old families like hers.

 Patrick Seale will be forgotten, except by people who share his worldview. They, too, are on the wrong side of history, and like him and his "scholarship", will be proved irrelevant by the mammoth groundswell of Arabs seeking freedom from every sort of ideological tyranny, whether secular or religious.'

Robert Fisk: Has Recep Tayyip Erdogan gone from model Middle East 'strongman' to tin-pot dictator?

 'That most controversial of American investigative journalists, Seymour Hersh - I confess he is an old mate of mine even though he often uses my most hated phrase, anonymous "officials" and "experts", as his sources - has now published his own disturbing and compelling research on the use of chemicals in Syria and points the finger at Turkey for allowing rebels to use sarin in an earlier chemical attack against the Syrian village of Khan al-Assal.'

 There was no research into the chemicals, just interviews with the likes of the spook who told us Saddam was behind 9/11, and Hersh now claims that the eastern Ghouta attack in August that killed 1500 was by rebels, not just the earlier one. Needless to say, all the other paragraphs in Fisk's piece contain similar untruths.I thought a long while ago that whether to support the Syrian revolution would be a defining question for the future of the left for the next generation, but I didn't imagine there would be those who would disgrace themselves with the denial of atrocities taking place before our eyes.

Syrian sides trade blame over new gas attack

 There are no red lines any more. If there ever were.

 'The Syrian National Coalition, the Western-backed opposition group, said the poison gas attack hurt dozens of people.'

Save Aleppo

 'One of the oldest continuously cities in the world, Aleppo has fallen victim to the worst destruction of any major city in the world since 1945.'

  A bit graphic.

 "Damn him [Assad], just yesterday my husband was killed."

In Syria, residents of Aleppo become inured to air raids

 "We don't take the warplanes seriously anymore," Laila said. "They launch rockets that are precise, but helicopters drop barrel bombs that can destroy dozens of homes with one barrel."

Miliband and the loneliness of a Jewish diaspora politician

 Fucking hypocrite. I've just seen him telling Nick Robinson that he stopped "the drive to war in Syria", hedged around his brother's estimation that Syria is the"defining collective failure of this century so far", and told us that military intervention was not the answer, conflating the vague threats that a few missiles might drop where they wouldn't hurt anyone with a rerun of Iraq. Instead he would rather threaten war with Iran.

 'When asked about Iran, Miliband, who successfully opposed in parliament the government’s plan a retaliatory strike on Syria following the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons says “We never rule out any options” and that we “have no illusions about the (Iranian) regime, we shouldn’t take on trust what they say.”'

 The report also said that the Israeli kids he visited within range of missiles to Gaza were only safe because of the reinforced roof. I did think that one thing that makes them a thousand times safer is not being Palestinian children living in Gaza, but I don't really want to get into the politics of Israel too much.

New Assad poison attack

 I do mean to analyse the place of sarin in political thinking at another time, but thankfully this seems to be something less fatal. Still, how long can this go on, etc.

 'The London Times Friday cited British officials as saying that they were “aware of multiple allegations” of poison gas attacks against opposition forces on the outskirts of the capital.
The Times reported that the regime this time may have been using "toxic industrial substances" to frighten rebels in a way that does not trigger a wide international outcry.

 This week an Israeli defense official said Assad had used chemical weapons again around the capital at the end of March. The Times of Israel reported that "the nonlethal agents were used to incapacitate opposition fighters." '

Syrian regime has not yet won the war

 'Anti-tank missiles are important for the rebels because they allow them to fend off the sophisticated tanks of the regime. But they could also signify a more serious shift. TOW missiles require training to operate, which may mean that the US, which has been holding back from supplying the weapons the rebels need to tip the conflict in their favour, may be reconsidering. If that assumption is correct, the US may also be considering supplying shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the rebels. That would allow them to counter the regime’s greatest strength, the airforce. That, if it happened, would be a decisive change.

 Now in its fourth year, the conflict has devastated Syria and made refugees of a third of the country. Yet the resolve of the rebels appears unbroken. Mr Nasrallah is fooling himself if he thinks they are on the run.'

The Assad Regime, Sarin and the Facts

 'After completing its report three weeks later, the UN Report released on September 16 confirmed the use of Sarin gas in Ghouta, saying that it "collected clear and convincing evidence that surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were used… in the Ghouta area of Damascus."

 Another UN Report released on February 12, 2014 noted that all evidence regarding the August 21 attack "indicated that the perpetrators likely had access to the chemical weapons stockpile of the Syrian military, as well as the expertise and equipment necessary". The inspectors on the ground also identified the surface-to-surface rockets as 140mm BM-14 rockets, which were manufactured in Russia and 330mm rockets manufactured probably by the Syrian army.'

Whose Sarin?

 ' “The Hersh story belies common sense and suggests that Turkey was able to manufacture a ton of sarin - no easy feat - and then smuggle that sarin into Syria,” Aaron Stein, an Associate Fellow at RUSI and the nonproliferation program manager at the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul, told Islamist Gate.

“That Sarin is then loaded into volcano rockets that were fired from government controlled areas towards rebel positions. As Dan Kaszeta [security and CBRN specialist] has pointed out, there are close correlations in chemistry (such as hexamine, a possible sarin additive) between the trace evidence found in the field and the inventories disclosed by the OPCW [the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]".

Stein added that therefore “Hersh’s article is at odds with science and common sense and suggests a deeper misunderstanding of Ankara’s Syria policy.” '

Note 6/3/25, Original link broken, probably written by Brian Whittaker.

Hersh and the Red Herring

Aboud Dandachi:

 "I have seen wrecking balls that did not manage to achieve the level of demolition that Mr Kaszeta just inflicted on Seymour Hersh. Whatever his previous exploits, Mr Hersh's reputation and standing have been irreparably damaged by his espousing theories and notions that he just hasn't been able to back up. As Dan Kaszeta pointed out, Mr Hersh ignores every technical obstacle to the idea that the rebels somehow gassed themselves as a PR stunt, in favor of a single source whose validity we have no way whatsoever to judge. Peer review is an important aspect to the validity of any claim. The evidence put forward by experts such as Mr Kaszeta has been scrutinized and analyzed to death, and stood the test of many months of study. In contrast, it is well-nigh impossible to confirm any of Hersh's assertions. A sad end to a previously distinguished journalistic career."

The Syrian Revolution and the Crisis of the Left

 'As Fredric Jameson writes: Villainy in mass culture has been reduced to two lone survivors of the category of evil: these two representations of the truly antisocial are, on the one hand, serial killers and, on the other, terrorists (mostly of the religious persuasion, as ethnicity has become identified with religion, and secular political protagonists like the communists and the anarchists no longer seem to be available).

 The West is increasingly adhering to this concept in the way it sees events in Syria. While
Nusra Front, for example, is recognized as being the most organized and disciplined rebel group in the fight against Assad, it is also classified by the United States as a terrorist organization and is purported to have strong links with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

 In generating a discourse that paints the struggle in Syria as one between two categories of evil—the Assad regime as the serial killer and the armed resistance to it as the terrorist—it essentially affirms the Assad regime’s narrative to the detriment of genuine revolutionary action against tyranny. We should not expect any less from the West.'

UN warns of Syria food shortage

 'On Monday, the WFP announced that it had to cut the size of its food parcels to Syrian families by 20 per cent. It blamed delays in receiving funds from international donors, saying it has only received 22% of the funds it needs for its operations in Syria.'

 If only you could raise crops with crocodile tears.

Seymour Hersh's Believe It or Don't

 And the source for the lie that Assad didn't use chemical weapons appears to be the same as the one that lied to us about Saddam's links to al-Qaida.

 'If Michael Maloof is "the former intelligence officer" that has been informing him, Sy Hersh has good reason for keeping his identity a secret. Michael Maloof was a Pentagon intelligence officer and part of a two-man team created after 9/11 to find links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. He had his security clearance revoked in 2003.

 Those close to him contend that his clearances were pulled in retaliation for challenging the official assessment that there were no operational terrorist links between al-Qaida and Iraq.'

Turkey’s Syria Policy: Why Seymour Hersh Got it Wrong

 'The conversation is a damning portrayal of the relative disorganization of Turkey’s Syria policy and, contrary to Hersh’s contention, portrays a bureaucracy that is out of options, rather than scheming to manipulate the course of the Syrian civil war. In fact, the most revealing part of the tape is Guler’s contention that even if Turkey were to train 1,000 men to fight in Syria, they would first need to ensure that they had 6 months of ammunition, or otherwise risk the fighters returning after 2 months of fighting.

 At one point, Davutoglu notes that Qatar is desperate to buy more ammo for cash, but are waiting for the “minister’s command.” Most assume that the minister is Erdogan, but no one really knows for certain. The conversation suggests that Turkey has not even stockpiled six-months of ammunition for its preferred proxies and that efforts to do so are marred with bureaucratic delays.'

 And so I wonder if it makes sense to describe the groups that Turkey (and others) support as "proxies" at all, these aren't creations of outside powers, but Syrians looking for arms to fight Assad.

176 prisoners tortured to death in Syrian prisons

 In March. The Syrian government really aren't very nice people.

The Corridor of Death

 'How the Syrian government's use of snipers against its own citizens gives the lie to its talk of fighting terrorism.

 "The Syrian regime's ruthless and relentless slaughter of its own people is a despicable crime. It must be stopped." '

Seymour Hersh's Volcano Problem

 'When accusing the Turkish government of participating in a horrific chemical attack as the pretext to invading Syria, these sort of details aren't something that can just be hand-waved with "well, they could do anything if they put their mind to it", as some commentators have attempted. The chemical Volcano rockets used on August 21st are a key piece of evidence, especially in the case of Seymour Hersh's latest accusations, so by not even acknowledging their existence, it seems Hersh is either ignorant of, or chooses to ignore, key information that is extremely significantly to the narrative he's trying to construct.

 Considering the seriousness of the charges he's making against the Turkish government, such an oversight seems highly irresponsible for a journalist of Hersh's reputation.'

More than 20 martyrs and great destruction after they were targetted with barrel bombs

 Rescue teams look for survivors in the rubble.

 Via EA Worldview [http://eaworldview.com/…/syria-daily-regime-airstrikes-al…/…]

There is No Chemical Weapons Conspiracy

 'The only portions of Hersh’s story that are corroborated by multiple sources are that: 1) the US military was opposed to widespread intervention in Syria after August 21; 2) the US and Turkey disagreed over the scale of support for Syria’s insurgents.'

 Aboud Dandachi: 'On March 5th 2014 the UN team investigating the attack concluded that the chemical weapons used in the attack could only have come from the Syrian army’s stockpiles. Since the regime has not claimed that any of its stockpiles of chemical weapons had been stolen or have gone missing, this finding rules out any possibility whatsoever of anyone except the Syrian army being responsible for the chemical weapons attacks.

 The presence of hexamine in the weapons used is by itself enough to prove the culpability of the regime. It has been described by chemical weapons experts as being “akin to the police finding red lipstick in a woman’s purse that matches collar stains on a murder victim”.'

 Seymour Hersh's 'original' piece is here:
[http://www.lrb.co.uk/…/seymou…/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line]



Note 6/3/25, the link to Aboud Dandachi's comment is missing.

The Syrian Arab Army in decay: Emptying the depots

 'Why are defections growing among regime fighters left behind on various fronts?

 Because they are no fools. They realize the game is up for the regime and for Idlib and so many other cities when the regime is forced to send large convoys of tanks and men off to save Lattakia. Fifteen more regime troops defected yesterday at the Sayyet checkpoint in Khan Shaykhoun. These left behind troops know the convoys will not return to any of those fronts. They sneer at any of their comrades who imagines otherwise.

 They know they’ve been left behind as rear guard cannonfodder to die whenever massive rebel forces arrive sooner or later.'

 [http://eaworldview.com/…/syria-daily-insurgents-retake-tow…/#]

 Which reminds me that I heard somewhere last week, possibly on the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent, someone from Damascus talk about how the régime attracts kids into the shabiha (thuggish militia) with real money and unreal promises that they will only have to serve in their local neighbourhood, only to be whipped off to another front.

 On the EA Worldview thread Dave takes disputes the strength of the Oryx case, specifically over ageing Mig-21s the régime has in storage, which I wonder if they are liable enough to be shot down, as well as not flexible to bomb smaller areas as helicopters, that it isn't worth getting them out.

Why Nigel Farage Has It All Wrong

 Dan Kaszeta:

 'The following formula is a useful summation of the evidence:

 Nobody’s used hexamine previously as a Sarin additive
 +
 There’s hexamine in the field samples
 +
 There’s 80 tons of hexamine in the declared inventory of the Assad Regime
 +
 The Syrian government’s admission to Sellstrom’s team
 EQUALS
 The Assad Regime Did the Wicked Deed'