Syrian Islamists’ call for a free state likely directed at West

 “The Syrian revolution . . . is based on morals and values with the objective of achieving freedom, justice and security to the entire Syrian society with its diverse multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian social fabric,” the statement says. “The Syrian people aim to establish a state of law, freedom and justice without any pressure or dictations.”

Syrian soccer goalie-turned-rebel becomes icon

 "He is one of the true revolutionaries who never strayed from the goal of this uprising, which is bringing down this regime."

Air defence chief Gen Hussein Ishaq killed

 'The air defence forces' headquarters is in a fiercely contested area of the current fighting around Damascus, AFP news agency reports.

 The rebels do not have an air force, the agency adds, so forces under Gen Ishaq's command have rarely been deployed for air defence.'

 The Argentinian air force used to take rebels and suspected rebels and drop them tied and blindfolded into the Atlantic. The Syrian airforce is too lazy, or has too many people to kill, to do that.

Turkey: Deterrence failing, Ukraine crisis partly result of Syria inaction

 'The United States, and the West at large, has appeared reluctant to become entangled in the Syrian civil war.

 President Barack Obama set a “red-line” for the Assad regime – the use of chemical weapons – but when that line was crossed he opted for a Russia-brokered diplomatic deal with the Syrian regime, rather than forceful intervention.'

 Invading Syria and doing nothing are not the only options here.

The war on bread

 “Did you ever see a starving person? I hope you never may,” wrote an American college professor, almost a hundred years ago, in the country then known as Greater Syria. “No matter how emaciated a person may be from disease he never looks exactly like the person suffering from pangs of hunger. It is indefinable but when you have once seen it you can never mistake it, nor ever forget it.”

In the Syrian Prison: Disconnected and Desubjectified

 'According to the testimonies of many survivors, there are growing numbers of detainees, arrested for involvement in peaceful demonstrations or relief work, who may have perished in detention and their bodies buried in secret mass graves. The testimonies of survivors frequently point to how detainees face a crushing limited space and excessive overpopulation in the place of detention. The extreme conditions of torture become routine. Violence and inhuman degradation are not confined to interrogation sessions, but appear to be part and parcel of the life of an inmate in a Syrian detention center.'

Not all fighters going to Syria are extremists

 ' ''The point I was making is that we should not jump to conclusions that the young people who want to fight are extremists,'' he said.'

 The point I might make is that extremism in defence of liberty is no vice, a point first made by Barry Goldwater when running for the US presidency, though in his case I think by liberty he meant racism.

 Shahid Malik was saying this while a guest of the Qatari government, so those who would rather nothing was done about Assad would say this is him trying to get in with them, and they are probably right. But it is still much preferable to politicians who label the fight for Syria's freedom as jihad.

This spread of 'holy fascism' is a disaster

 'The result is deepening sectarianism as Shia are targeted as non-Muslims, and non-Muslims of all descriptions are forced to flee, so that countries such as Iraq and Syria are being emptied of Christians who have lived in them for almost 2,000 years.'

 Oh, that's why there are nine million refugees from Syria, not because Assad has bombed them to Hell. I bet the Saudis wish they'd supported the Iranians in killing lots of Sunni Muslims in Syria instead.

 'There are signs that the Saudi rulers may now be coming to regret giving quite so much support to the jihadis trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. In the past few days, they have invited the Iranian foreign minister to visit the kingdom. But it may be too late: having had their government denounce Mr Assad as the root of all evil in Syria, Saudi jihadis will see it as a betrayal and the height of hypocrisy if the state now threatens them with prison terms when they return home.'

 If they are fighting to overthrow Assad, they are not simply jihadis. The Saudis are the most unreliable of friends, but their alleged rapprochement with Tehran doesn't invalidate the Syrian struggle. Assad is the root of the evil in Syria.

 Fascism is an over-used term. The Decent Left applied it to Saddam Hussein, so that we would forget about American imperialism, then to Islam in general, so that we would think that liberal intervention would sort out Afghanistan. Now it is being used by Patrick Cockburn to say we should prefer Assad to revolution.

Syria Islamists pledge 'state of law, freedom, justice'

 ' "The Syrian revolution is committed to the respect of human rights that are also encouraged by our religion," said the covenant, which all but revoked a November denunciation of democracy by the Islamic Front, which had also called for the establishment of an Islamic state.

 "The Syrian revolution is a revolution based on morals and values with the objective of achieving freedom, justice and security (for) the entire Syrian society, with its diverse multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian social fabric," added the statement, posted by the Islamic Front on Twitter.'

Syria Documentary Uses Amateur Footage

 ' “For all the people, demonstrating against Assad was an explosion of cinema. People screaming ‘Freedom! Freedom!’ and filming for the first time,” Mohammed said. “It was a revolution of cinema, of images, of expression.”

 But, interestingly, the images he used also come from members of Assad’s military forces. In a clear sign of internal rebellion against the regime, the shocking torture scenes at the start of the film were shot “either by a soldier or a secret service officer,” Mohammed said.'

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.

Syria is Not a Stalemate

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.'

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.'

Syrian rebels cut off water to Aleppo in botched attack on regime areas

 Patrick 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 Ladens here?

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.'

The devil's in the details

 '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:

 '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.” '

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.

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 Syria

 'Two 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.

Syria's revolution had too many enemies

 I think this shows deficiencies in Simon Assaf'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

 'Considered the capital of Syria's revolution after being one of the first places to hold large demonstrations in March 2011, Homs is now an urban graveyard.

 Here are a few photos from throughout the war that show how a blockade and merciless bombardment from Assad's warplanes pounded Homs into submission.'

 '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/2014/05/08/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.

Why dictators hold elections

 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.

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

 '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.

The fall of Yabroud

 Isabel Nassief was just pointing out on al-Jazeera's Inside Syria, that the régime is now largely based on militia, including those from Iraq and the IRGC (Iranians), followed by pointing out that 'rebel infighting' is largely rebel groups fighting against the extreme jihadis of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), finishing with, "these elections should in no way be a legitimising factor for the régime, which is the biggest radicalising factor among Syrians."

Syria Medical Convoy Seizures an 'Abomination'

 'A senior UN aid official accused the Syrian government on Friday of blockading medical supplies from convoys bound for opposition-held areas.

 "Medical supplies are being removed from convoys as part of a strategy to deny the wounded medical care. This is an abomination," John Ging, the UN director of Syria aid operations, told reporters in Geneva.'

Murdering with impunity?

 'Al-Hosni, recently awarded the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, an important international human rights award, blames Brahimi for the international community’s failure to stop the killings.

 "The reason Brahimi was chosen by the major powers as a mediator for Syria was that throughout his professional career he had favoured peace over justice." '

Taking Homs is a hollow victory

 'The influx of sophisticated weaponry – particularly the powerful TOW wire-guided anti-tank missiles – that are being acquired by the Free Syrian Army aligned forces, are giving them a considerable edge in street battles.'

Arm the rebels, pleads Syrian opposition

 'Jarba also stressed Syrians were not calling on the United States or the West “to send their sons to Syria” to fight as in past wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. “We do not want Americans to die in Syria,” he insisted. But “we do have a problem with the air forces, the air raids and the barrel bombs. This is making our lives a nightmare." '

Syria's jigsaw as complicated as ever

 I think Ian Black is noticeably unfriendly to the opposition. From his opening line, 'Ahmed Jarba, president of the Syrian opposition coalition (SOC), is in Washington this week, flattered by the official "foreign mission" status accorded to his office,' as if Jarba were some tin pot exiled monarch.

 Black's initial assessment of the next Friends of Syria meeting, " No-one is holding their breath," just doesn't fit into the same jigsaw as, 'Kerry flies to London to join William Hague and other ministers to discuss "how best to significantly step-up.. support to the Syrian opposition, make urgent progress on improving the deteriorating humanitarian crisis and reinvigorate a political process that has stalled due to regime intransigence." (Weapons deliveries are unlikely to be mentioned publicly). It's an ambitious agenda.'

 'Bashar al-Assad will stand for a third term as president, re-election guaranteed - despite western criticism of a "grotesque parody of democracy." '

 In this case, accurate criticism, Western or otherwise.

 'Meanwhile barrel bombs rain down on civilian areas with terrible consequences.'

 No, they rain down on civilians in opposition held areas. Dropped by the government.

 'Thursday's bombing of an Aleppo hotel used by the army by the Islamic Front shows that the battle for the city is not over.'

 Or the battle for the city has been going the rebels' way. Whenever they has been a mix of gains for each side, it is presented as evidence that Assad is immovable, rather than that there is a majority of the country he can never win over no matter how much force he uses, and so it is really a question of whether the country is destroyed before he goes, not if.

 'The publicised delivery of US-made TOW anti-tank missiles to one carefully-vetted Saudi-backed brigade has raised the prospect of more significant military aid to anti-Assad forces and a counter-weight to support from Iran and Hezbollah.'

 And it could change the balance completely. If the cannot bomb people into surrendering or fleeing, the régime forces are left without a strategy.

 'Intriguingly Assad spoke this week of facilitating aid deliveries (though without "compromising national sovereignty) - perhaps to counter international condemnation of his "surrender or starve" policy.'

 Because he might need to make he's not doing it for a while, to prevent the US 'intervening' by providing anti-aircraft missiles. As happened after the August sarin attack, when the supposed threat of a Western invasion of Syria was more important than the actual attack.



 'Probably the most important thing, from the perspective of all opposition forces, is reaffirmation of the western-Gulf line that "Assad and his close associates...who have blood on their hands will not have any role to play in the future of Syria" - just as he prepares to start a triumphal third term.'

 Again dismissing the opposition as a Western creation, to which the policies of the West are more important than whether they provide the military materiel that would enable Syrians to determine their own destiny.

 'Talk is rife of who may replace Brahimi.'

 He's done no good for Syrians, I think it is those who see Syria's future decided in the high councils of the UN that are more interested in the progression of UN mediators.

 'Whoever does take over will need to think very hard about what do next — and first of all decide whether the Geneva process or some other route to a negotiated political solution can be revived.'

 There is no negotiating with Assad, except for when he might leave.

 'Syria's bloody crisis continues to pose lots of questions. But few of the answers are satisfactory.'

 I can think of one.

America can stop the ‘barrel bombs’ in Syria

 Mohammed Alaa Ghanem:

'As few as 20 MANPADS distributed to moderate Syrian rebel groups would make Assad regime pilots think twice before agreeing to decimate civilian areas through barrel bombings. And the added risk to civilian airliners would be extremely small, especially if the MANPADS were outfitted with the technological fixes under discussion.

For the sake of the thousands of Syrians killed or injured by barrel bombings — including schoolchildren in Aleppo who believed in the United States — we ask the American people to assume this risk and support the provision of MANPADS to carefully vetted elements of the Syrian opposition.'

One U.S.-Backed Rebel Group Cooperates With Al-Qaeda

 This is what happens when journalists rely on government officials for their stories. If al-Nusra got control of the weapons pipeline through Jordan, there wouldn't be any pipeline. This is scaremongering to keep the rebel forces in Syria from being supported, much like the people who whinge about the Gulf Co-operation Council and the threat of al-Qaida, while ignoring the real threats that Syrians face.

 ' "Naimeh's arrest signals that Nusra feels emboldened in the south," said a Western official in Istanbul monitoring the Syrian civil war. "Nusra may be wanting to assert its dominance in the south by controlling the support pipeline from Jordan" to the FSA, this official added.'

Aleppo hotel used by Assad forces 'levelled'

 The AP report ends with a couple of paragraphs of standard untruths about the revolution turning into a sectarian war dominated on the rebel side by foreign fighters.

 'Syria's uprising began with largely peaceful protests and has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, pitting largely Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government, which is dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shia Islam.

 Islamic extremists, including foreign fighters and Syrian rebels who have taken up hardline al-Qaida-style ideologies, have played an increasingly prominent role among fighters, dampening the west's support for the rebellion to overthrow Assad.'

Foreign jihadis in Syria pledge their own 9/11

 'American, Saudi and Jordanian intelligence have been working on creating a "southern front" around Daraa, the southern city where the Syrian revolt began, a front supposedly made up of moderate, secular fighters, who are both anti-Assad and anti-jihadi. This is deceptive, since an important force in such operations would be Jabhat al-Nusra which, on this front, is reportedly acting in coordination with a Jordanian, Saudi and US intelligence joint operations room in Amman.'

 Shorter Patrick Cockburn, supporting revolution in Syria will lead to more 9/11s. He ignores the way the mainstream rebels have forced ISIS out of much of Syria, that Jabhat al -Nusra only exists because of the failure to provide support to secular rebels, that al-Nusra aren't a part of the unified Southern command*, indeed anything that doesn't fit Bush's message that either you are for the terrorists against them.
*[http://www.dailystar.com.lb/…/255012-rebels-pin-hopes-on-un…]

Rebels evacuated from Old City of Homs

 ' "The rest of the world failed us," one activist told the BBC by Skype as he prepared for the evacuation.'

The testimony of an activist about Branch 285

 'Those torturing methods include:

 - Pulling off nails, especially fingernails.

 - Beating and punching directly on the face; especially on the eyes.

 - Quenching cigarettes on the detainee's body, especially on the back and hands.

 - Whipping all over the body, especially on the back.

 - Depriving the already tortured detainees of medicine which is already rare, so that they wouldn't be able to cure bruises and injuries caused by torture.

 - Beating detainees while going to the toilet, which forced some detainees to stop eating at all, or eat some food only, so that they wouldn't have to go to toilet.

 -Pouring hot water on detainee's body, mostly on the back and shoulders.

 - Using 'Bisat Alreeh' (wind carpet) by forcing the detainee to lie down on two wooden boards and then tie him to these boards and bend his body brutally by raising his feet to the head while beating the feet.'

The Distance Between the Images and the Victims

 'The one consistent fact about the horrifying images that have come out of Syria over the past 21/2 years is that in many cases, we don’t know who made them and what they depict. All we see are decontextualized cruelty and misery. Cynicism creeps in, and there is a natural tendency to push the images away as a kind of insoluble puzzle.

 The girl in the purple t-shirt is called Fatima Ghorra, three years old. The girl in the yellow t-shirt is her sister, Hiba Ghorra, four years old. The man is their maternal grandfather, Abu Hamza al-Sheikh. Their father is Nabil Ghorra, a medical doctor, and their mother is from al-Sheikh family. Fatima and Hiba have three sisters and one brother: Battoul, 16 years old, Rama, 15 years old, Muhammad, 12 years old, and Dania, 9 years old. Ghorra family resided in Zamalka.

 Nearly one year ago, the parents forbade their kids going to school, especially after some pro-regime teachers began showing up to school with their guns, and questioning 12 year old children on their political affiliations. Since then, the children spent most of their time indoor. In moments of intensified shelling, parents tried to calm down their kids either by lying on them or by holding them. At the beginning of this year, and due to escalating clashes and shellings, Ghorra family moved to the nearby town of Hazzeh, to return to Zamalka couple of months ago, but to a new apartment in Zayniya neighbourhood.'

UN looking for Syria envoy as Brahimi prepares to quit after failed peace talks

 Somebody has to say that the two sides are much the same, and peace might come if the rebels stop fighting. Perhaps they should appoint Ian Black, Guardian Middle East editor and author of this article?

 'According to the latest figures more than 150,000 people have been killed since the anti-Assad uprising began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against the background of the Arab spring. But Syria is now embroiled in a fully fledged war that has drawn in foreign forces and support on both sides.'

Deadly air strike on Aleppo market

 'Local activists said a government helicopter had dropped three barrel bombs on the area, which had been packed with shoppers at the time.

 "It was mayhem; many of the bodies are burned," one of them, Hasson Abu Faisal, told the Associated Press.'

Teaching Revolution

 'The likes of Mohammed need to be supported with funds and depoliticized teaching material—and rather than shying away from the Islamic character of such groups, foreign donors need to accept that religion is a part of the lives of Syrians and that Islamic groups will always be part of civil society. It is not enough that Syrian children are given education outside of their country as refugees. NGOs must also be willing to work with organizations such as Mohammed’s network to provide children with a semblance of education. The alternative is to raise an ignorant generation brutalized by war, sowing more problems for the future.'

Whose sarin?

 Oh Christ, Eamonn McCann has fallen for this genocide denialist crap. The four most obvious mistakes I can find in his last couple of paragraphs are misspelling al-Nusra, claiming that al-Nusra are allied to Turkey, that all we can be sure of is that everything is confusing and terrifying, and that people are trying to ignore Seymour Hersh. Supporters of the Syrian revolution, such as Jamie Allinson on the letters page of the London Review of Books, are very concerned about the way Hersh's inventions are being used to weaken the case against Assad.

 'The story brings into focus, too, the fact that the Ankara regime of Recep Erdogan is allied with one of the fiercest of the jihadist factions of the splintered anti-Assad movement, the al-Nasra Front, also associated with al-Qaida.

 All we can say for certain about the implications of this cat's cradle of murder, conspiracy and lies is that they are terrifying. Which, perhaps, is why, again, so many are averting their eyes from a Sy Hersh story.'

 Someone should have a word with Eamonn and suggest he not embarrass himself further.

World allows Assad's murder spree to continue

 The idea that the rebels would gas themselves is based on an acceptance of a dishonest picture of them that the Assad régime has built up.

 'Tlass also tells us about Assad's history of using false-flag attacks, as could be expected of a criminal gang. This practice of staging attacks and blaming the opposition must always be remembered when considering the claims of the Assad regime about deaths caused by the revolutionaries:

 "I must now say a few words about the indiscriminate attacks that occurred in Damascus at the end of 2011 and in early 2012. I can confirm that all these spectacular operations were carried out by the regime. And if not all of them, very nearly all of them. You can take this as reliable and corroborated information. Either way I will only speak here of attacks for which I have first-hand information, transmitted by officers who conducted the investigation. I’m not talking about ordinary officers, but members of the secret cell I mentioned previously." '

Free Syria contingent at NYC May Day march

 'The Syrian revolution has its roots in the same kind of economic grievances faced by working people in the US and the West: widespread youth unemployment, high food prices, austerity measures, and a bloated military budget. Fearing unrest, the Bashar Assad regime muscled up on its security, pouring money into the police and intelligence services at the expense of social spending. Any vocal criticism of the government was met with persecution by the police state long before the eruption in the spring of 2011.

 We demand that Russia stop its supply of weapons to Assad
We demand that the US open its doors wide to Syrian refugees
We demand that Assad be tried for crimes against humanity'