Friday 30 November 2012

Shahnaz Taplin-Chinoy Headshot

Why Women Must Be at the Heart

of Phase II of the Arab Spring

"In the Syrian opposition front based outside Syria, and just being recognized by European governments, not a single woman is included."


Syria Internet Shutdown: A Loser’s Strategy


"Assad's move may backfire as Mubarak's did. When Mubarak cut the internet, he crippled the country's major industries and businesses, the ones connected to the global economy. Those businesses -- from oil to finance -- were crucial to keeping Egypt's economy functioning during what the regime hoped would be a passing protest phenomenon. Syrian business, while sputtering, is still generating revenue for Syria's cash-strapped economy.
"Technology doesn't "make" a revolution -- at least not after the initial stage. What keeps a revolution going is a citizenry turning against its government to such a degree that each new repressive step only makes them angrier."

The Final Countdown


"According to the Washington Post, both Egypt and Libya had shut its internet service during the height of their revolution as well. Considered a landmark event during their fight, the Syrian outage may hold similar importance."
[http://www.idigitaltimes.com/…/syria-internet-shut-down-wha…]
fadia_afashe_slide_01_0

Paint and Suffering: A Syrian Artist’s Cry for Help


"Fadia’s final painting in her exhibition, entitled “His Soul,” depicts the soul of her husband’s 19-year-old cousin, who was tortured and died before his parents’ eyes. Fadia hopes that the painting will send her audience a vivid message: “I died for freedom. What have you done?” "

Thursday 29 November 2012

Nothing nuanced in Assad's bloody survival strategy

NationalLogo

Why any socialists would think such people have any insight into events in the Middle East is mindboggling.
"Some activists, intellectuals and human-rights advocates who are defined as leftist, anti-imperialist and fiercely pro-resistance have mocked the revolution while warning against the "reactionary" tendency to frame Syria as a humanitarian crisis instead of a geopolitical catastrophe. Though they are committed to drawing attention to the unrest in Bahrain, cheering any whisper of trouble in Saudi Arabia, welcoming the unfolding protests in Jordan and expressing outrage over every Palestinian death in Gaza, they continue to watch with "critical" eyes as dozens are killed in Syria every single day."

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Image result for Yabroud: Assad is overthrown

Yabroud: Assad is overthrown

In Yabroud, a child searches for a space in the sky for his kite, perhaps it can take him to his Syria, a country free from all tyrants and prisons.


Syrian regime draws battle lines as rebels advance

' "If the rebels make real progress around the capital, it could be the beginning of the end for Assad," the analyst said.'
Indeed.

Monday 26 November 2012



Syrian rebels forced to police their

own as crime tarnishes reputation


"Revolutionary Security has struggled to communicate to the civilian population that it’s OK, even encouraged, for them to complain when they see members off the FSA engaged in inappropriate or illegal behavior.
Under the Assad regime, such complaints against the state and government could easily land the whistle blower in jail. Though the revolution was founded on challenging that type of authority, changing the deeply ingrained, 40-year-old culture of not questioning the government remains difficult."
A Syrian refugee girl, who fled the violence in her country, stands outside the Bashabsha camp near the Jordanian city of Ramtha, close to the Syrian border AFP Photo / Khalil Mazraawi

Egypt least worst option

for Syrian refugees

"Confronting humiliation is at the heart of the Syrian revolution said Salma Gazayerli, a Syrian activist living in Egypt. “Our revolution was mainly about dignity and freedom. In Syria, even though there is a discrepancy between different classes, the revolution was not as much about economics or poverty or bread like in Egypt. It was about dignity.” "

Sunday 25 November 2012

Image result for syrian rebels capture air base near damascus

Syrian rebels capture air base near Damascus

"Helicopter base", but "outskirts of Damascus".


Jabal Mohsen tells its side of the story

Friends like this can be hard to find sometimes.
“I was working in a shop in Tripoli when a Salafist came and asked what sect I was. I said ‘Muslim,’ but he asked what kind of Muslim, so I replied, ‘Lebanese Muslim.’”
When the Salafist realized he was an Alawite, Hassan said, he told him that he could not continue working at the shop. “The owner couldn’t do anything. People interfered to stop him from hitting me. A Sunni friend of mine at work came to defend me, but the Salafist put a gun to his head and said, ‘You are a Sunni working with an Alawite.’ ”


Hezbollah: Ties with Hamas strong despite Syria differences


"Hezbollah has repeatedly voiced support for President Bashar Assad but Hamas has refused to take Assad’s side, although the Palestinian movement has always enjoyed the support of Syrian authorities."
I believe inserting 'verbal' between 'the' and 'support of Syrian authorities' would render this statement more accurate.

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better


Nasrallah said in a speech in Beirut Sunday that Israel will face "thousands of rockets that will fall on Tel Aviv and other areas if it launches an aggression against Lebanon."
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10544524]

Ordinary Man


David Miliband: "The best way this could end is a palace coup". The butchers of Damascus are his preferred agency in Syria rather than a potentially Islamist popular insurgency. He's not the only one with such a contempt for ordinary people.


Syria rebels ready final assault on Sheikh Suleiman base


"Every soldier in the base understands that the end of the regime is near. They are just waiting for an opportunity to lay down their arms, but their Alawite officers prevent them," he said.

Saturday 24 November 2012



Syrian flees war in nick of time,

embraces life in Gainesville

'When he fled, the military and police only tortured and killed those actively involved in opposition. Now, the indiscriminate killing of civilians is commonplace. At least 37,000 people have been reported killed since the uprising in Syria began about 18 months ago. Herakka's hometown of Aleppo is at the center of the conflict.
When people refer to the situation in Syria, Herraka clarifies, "It is not a civil war — it is a revolution." '
Gatestone Institute

More Trouble in Jordan

You wonder if the bizarre idea that the threat of Islamism should be fought by not offering any support will spread on the left from Syria to Jordan. Perhaps not, as Jordan is an acceptable tyranny to be opposed to in the black-and-white view.
'Those interested in keeping Jordan calm, peaceful, and out of the hands of Islamists should either support the king significantly, or find a quiet plan B to support the secular opposition in Jordan. As the active opposition figure Kamal Khoury, a Palestinian Christian, said, "The seculars in Jordan are strong in their numbers and following, they just need financial and media support to dominate the arena." Dr. Khalid Kassimah, an East Banker opposition member residing in exile, stated: "The non-Islamist Jordanian opposition is no more in disarray than the Syrian secular opposition once was; minimal Western support might work wonders here; and I would not be surprised if a Jordanian opposition council is to be established in exile just as was the case in Syria."'


In a Jordan camp, outsiders seek Syrian brides

“We launched a revolution to win back our dignity,” Naimi said. “We are not going to surrender it for a dowry.”
Image result for Condoleezza Rice: Syria is central to holding together the Middle East

Condoleezza Rice: Syria is central

to holding together the Middle East

"Karl Marx once called on workers of the world to unite across national boundaries. He told them that they had more in common with each other than with the ruling classes that oppressed them in the name of nationalism. Marx exhorted workers to throw off the “false consciousness” of national identity." True that, and he wasn't any more in favour of sectarian identity, so Condoleeza Rice's next line is untrue, "Today’s Karl Marx is Iran."


Sabra: Unity, gains will sway Assad allies

"We have historical ties with Russia, and we also have relations with Iran, but we hope both countries would re-examine their stances because it will not be possible for the Syrian people to deal in the same way with those who supported their aspirations for democracy as with those who were supporters of the killing machine."

Samar Yazbek, Branded Betrayer for Embracing Syria Rebels

Image result for samar yazbek branded a betrayer

"One of five brothers and three sisters, she ran away from home at 16 and married at 20. She divorced two years later, taking her toddler daughter to Damascus. She was determined to fight for women’s rights, she said, “to combat their status in the Arab world.” "

Friday 23 November 2012



Hardliners Slam Hamas Over

Ties with Qatar, Turkey

Et tu, Brute. “Did the leaders of these countries in the war of the past week cry out in support of Gaza?! Were they even ready for the publication of a short statement to condemn the crimes and brutality of the Zionist regime?! Can such countries be trusted and depended upon as a supporter?
bigwinnman's Avatar

Let us feel sorry together

"The mistake made by the Al-Mayadin TV station, which aired images from Syria and claimed they were shot in Gaza, is indicative of this relationship of similarity and intertwining, which is highlighted by the fact that Hamas has exited Damascus, leading to a campaign of criticism launched against it by the Syrian regime’s allies."

Flowers In The Rain


Syrian aid smugglers haggle for flour in Turkey
[http://www.dailystar.com.lb/…/195926-syrian-aid-smugglers-h…]

Thursday 22 November 2012

All Or Nothing


Some time in 1978 or 1979 I wrote a little essay on current events in Iran. Not very sophisticated, it ended, "maybe there will be a military coup."
I was reminded of that today, when a leftist Friend on Facebook criticised the "all or nothing" approach of offering unconditional* support to the Syrian revolution. If socialists had said thirty years ago that maybe negotiations with the Shah's régime were better than the prospect of Islamists coming out on top after a bloodbath, they'd never have earned the right to criticise when it came to resisting that very eventuality.
Hopefully the Syrian revolution will complete its initial task soon. Anyone who wants to be heard when it comes to suggesting ways to build a society free from foreign domination in which all share the wealth would be advised to show more sophistication than I did when I was ten.
* "But critical", in Lenin's phrase.


Syria's new opposition in race

to convince skeptical Islamists


"Islamist fighters say it is only fair they assert their power after months of being ignored in political squabbling abroad while they fought Assad's forces on the ground.
Some put their frustration on display earlier this week when they announced the creation of an Islamic state in a video rejecting the National Coalition.
The immediate backlash from most rebel leaders and Syrian activists pushed many fighters in the video to retract their remarks the next day. But it laid bare the deep mistrust which the coalition has to overcome."


Syrian Kurds have to pick a side in the
revolution: SNC leader Abdulbasit Sieda

“Today, Syria is revolting and asks for democracy. In order to achieve your rights, you have to be part of this revolution.”
Syrian rebel fighters' homemade rocket launcher

Syrians may be better off without cheerleaders

Interesting piece. To fight a war, you do need to get your guns from somewhere.
'The head of the Free Syrian Army's military council, Mostafa Al-Sheikh, was clear. "The international community need Syria for the stability of the international system. They don't give us any support, and what support they do give us is corrupt or not worth having. What they're giving us isn't big enough to liberate one city, never mind the entire country." '
Hugo Chavez (left) has chosen to steer the Syrian-Venezuelan community into his own corner while jettisoning any notion of a human-rights oriented foreign policy [EPA]

How Hugo Chavez botched the Arab Spring


The Syrian revolution is the most significant alteration of power for twenty years, more significant for the Western Left than economically more significant Egypt because it is harder to work out how to relate to the fall of régimes outside the Western sphere of influence.
A test many on the left are failing which is unfortunate for them, and may be unfortunate for Syrians, who will be faced with the problem of how to create a society in which the mass of people have real control over their lives, and if most of the best answers would come from those who bemoan that their revolution might be taken over by al-Qaida or the State Department rather than offer any actual solidarity, who pretend that the struggle of the FSA is a Western take-over of a peaceful revolution, then I don't see post-revolutionary events working out for the best.
The last Kozloff piece I saw [http://www.aljazeera.com/…/…/2012/10/201210975353819725.html] had some noticeable deficiencies which I mentioned at the time. This one seems to the point, and have general application.

Wednesday 21 November 2012



"Seen at a protest in Hebron in the West Bank earlier today, the flag of the Syrian opposition."
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/…/gaza-conflict-fierce-fighting-c…]
Spray-Can-Banner.jpg

Syria's Spray-Can Revolution


I don't think "almost as bad" is the right way to compare torture and allowing kids to help fight the torturers, but there you have it.
"In June, a United Nations special representative returned from a fact-finding trip with tales of horrific abuses against children. She relayed testimony from children who'd been tortured by the regime, or placed on tanks and used as human shields. The rebel Free Syrian Army was almost as bad, she noted in her report, frequently recruiting children to help out on the front line."
The image of Dana Bakdounis posted on Facebook

Unveiled Syrian Facebook post

stirs women's rights debate


"I want to take another picture, but from inside Syria, just to show that I could be a fighter against injustice and power. With my camera, I can help the people and support the Free Syrian Army."
Increasingly, reports from inside Syria highlight the presence of fundamentalist Islamist factions within the anti-regime movement, hijacking the struggle.
With the influx of these non-Syrian jihadi fighters, there are growing fears for the future of women's rights in the nation and the region.
Dana and those like her want to see a new Syria.
"[A Syria] full of rights, with justice between men and women. I want justice because I already have my freedom, and I'm not afraid of anything now, now I can do whatever I believe it is right to do."

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Image result for For Syrians Enduring the Harsh Conditions of War, Turkey Acts as Lifeline

For Syrians Enduring the Harsh Conditions

MARGARET WARNER: Yet even this idealistic attorney dismisses talk from the West of a negotiated end to the conflict.
Do you think there's a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria?
AHMED HASSOUN (through translator): I don't think so. Dictators don't have a midpoint. It's either they stay or no one else does.
MARGARET WARNER: So, what is it going to take to solve this conflict?
AHMED HASSOUN (through translator): I think the only solution is arming the organized Syrian opposition.