What are your chances if you're a Syrian citizen now?

 'You can join the revolt, which may involve you in the crimes of murder, kidnapping, pillage and rape.'

 Charles Glass slanders by maybe. It is the Geneva talks, which promise nothing but compromise with the torturers, which offer a continuation of the horrors.

Snipers of Aleppo

 'What does he think when he sees his people having to run across the street from Assad's snipers?

 "You wish you could explode yourself. But we are going to hold fast. We plead to Allah, to elect him as his men on Earth, and we will defend them until our last drop of blood." '

 How do we know who to arm in Syria? Maybe start with this guy. Probably much of the weaponry will fall into the hands of Muslims, and that's not a bad thing. They're trying to free Syria from Assad, not diverting Stinger missiles to Afghanistan or flying planes into the World Trade Centre.

Is #Qusayr Assad's 1st major victory in over a year?

 Reuters: "What Qusair also underlines is how a conflict that began as an Arab Spring uprising against dictatorship is turning into a proxy war pitting Iran against the West and its Arab allies - a contagious contest that has spread east and west of Syria.

 Clay Claiborne: "Oh really? Where was the West in Qusayr? Where were the Arab allies?
True enough, Assad has brought in Hezbollah from Lebanon, as well as fighters from Iran and Iraq, but the Syria revolutionaries have no proxies even while the media imagines they do."

Doctor in Syria's Qusayr pleads for help

 "It is a serious catastrophe. The martyrs are more than 200. We have no time to bury them. Some stayed for days in the streets. The smell of death is all over the place, it is not human. Where is the world, where are the organisations who are claiming to help the people? We have lost everything."

Proxy war in Syria is part shadow boxing

 Alex Callinicos would appear not to know what he wants to say about Syria:

 "But there is a definite danger that geopolitics will overwhelm the revolution in Syria. This doesn’t mean that there is a serious prospect of a direct confrontation between Britain and France and Russia over Syria."

 I think he finally explains in what way he thinks geopolitics will overwhelm the revolution in the last line, but it is a throwaway comment rather than analysis.

 "But the proxy war that outside powers are trying to wage in Syria may precipitate a widening sectarian implosion."

 There are really boxes of weaponry arriving in Syria from Russia, the revolutionaries are much poorer armed. The West is vacillating, but he ought to be saying that they should be providing arms to the rebels, rather than vaguely saying that everything that is real is wrong.

Jumblat Slams Nasrallah's 'War against Takfiris': Syrian Regime Uses al-Nusra to Execute Attacks

 'The Druze leader reiterated his support to the “Syrian people's revolution against injustice, dictatorship and oppression,” but stressed his rejection to all calls that refuse to recognize other religious sects.

 "(Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf) Qaradawi's call to expiate Allawites is completely unacceptable and contradicts with Islamic Sharia,” Jumblat declared.

 "Such fatwas (Islamic edicts) generate hatred and establish long-term sectarian conflicts.” '

The Preview Trailer For Not Anymore: A Story Of Revolution

 "We can talk, and express our opinions about anything; and that's worth it."

Russia blocks UN ‘declaration of alarm’ on Syria’s Qusayr

 It doesn't matter to the Russians, or their fans in the Stop The War movement, that thousands of civilians have no food and are being bombarded, because it is their ally Assad who is doing it.
The government may win this fight - though the longer it goes on, the more it looks like it has played every card in its hand - but it can never return the areas it controls to any sort of normality.

Writing the Revolution - The Voices from Tunis to Damascus

 'Bashar al-Assad has proved to be as brutal as his father in the suppression of dissent. Every day there is more bloodshed and new horrors are witnessed; Dunia calls it the revolution of the mobile phone versus the bullet.'

The Syrian crisis and Hezbollah

 'What made Hezbollah strong and respected was that its constituency transcended sectarian, and even religious and ideological boundaries. Hezbollah found support among Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, nationalists, leftists and even in political movements in the West... As of May 25, 2013, Hezbollah has become a local actor only supported by the Shiite population, acting on behalf of Iran.

 If one replaced all occurrences of “Baath dictatorship,” “al-Assad” or “the regime” in any text the Syrian rebels expressed themselves, with “Pahlavi dictatorship” or “Shah” and read this text in some demonstration in Iran in 1978, no one would be the wiser. Or, if one replaced “USA” with “Russia” in any statement released during the Iranian revolution and used this in the Syrian crisis context today, no one would know the difference. Similarly, if one replaced “Hezbollah” with “Syrian Opposition” and “Israel” with “Syria” in any statement issued by Israel in 2006, it could be easily believed that it was as a statement issued by Hasan Nasrallah, today.'

We and the Syrians

 'For 42 consecutive years since 1971, the late Hafez al-Assad and his son, President Bashar al-Assad, treated Syria as if it was their private property. We, Indonesians, are obliged by our Constitution to help the Syrians get rid of the oppressive Syrian regime.'

How Syria Became a More Dangerous Quagmire Than Iraq

 Patrick Cockburn blows a lot of smoke, and then complains about the fog of war.

S-300 anti-aircraft missiles

 'Moscow's S-300 anti-aircraft missiles – which could potentially alter the balance of power between Syria, the rebels, and Israel – are now thought unlikely to be operational for a year.'

Syrian evidence confusing because we didn’t manufacture it, admit UN members

 'Upon suggestion that the UN might have to actually intervene in Syria, government officials moaned, “Do we really have to? I’m not sure there’s much in it for us apart from helping millions of people escape an oppressive and deadly regime.” '

From Palestine… Here is the Syrian Revolution!

 'The revolutionaries, who chanted against Assad, are those who condemn any violations from the side of the opposition forces, political, military and civilian. We also support the Syrian people’s resistance, in the means that they find appropriate, whether peaceful or non-peaceful.'

Lifting the Syria arms embargo is another step towards full scale war

 Another shitty anti-revolutionary article from Lindsey German. No criticism of the Russian arms, only talking of the opposition or of Assad stepping down as bad things.

 I found it via a site associated with the pro-Israel AWL* (who themselves have switched on Syria, as their fear of Muslims outweighs their desire to bash the left), which had this:

 'An attempt at a major public meeting on the issue, held in London on 21 May, attracted only 50 people. This was a meeting organised by leftists (Counterfire and Socialist Action) to oppose Western intervention in Syria at which no platform speaker was willing to criticise the disgusting Syrian regime.'

 Nice to see they got so few for a pro-Assad meeting.

*[http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/…/stop-the-war-degene…/]

Western arms threaten Syria’s troubled revolt

 Al-Qusayr should have a hyphen rather than a question mark, I think. While most of the warnings about the perils of Western influence may be timely, the suggestion seems to be that no military aid would be best. I don't think the FSA is in a position to be quite so snooty.

 Simon Assaf: 

 'Europe’s weapons would be funnelled through select Free Syrian Army (FSA) channels. The aim is to bolster the pro-Western section of the opposition leadership and reduce the influence of Islamist and revolutionary brigades.'

 Anyone who actually provides support to the Syrian people is likely to increase their influence, but I don't see that receiving Western arms would change the character of the FSA. And what is making anyone stay 'pro-Western' if they don't want to, once victory is achieved?

Lessons from Raqqa: from demanding freedom to creative state-building

 'If anyone can achieve the impossible, it is Syrians. They have turned the French students uprising´s slogans - "Be realistic, demand the impossible" - into "Be realistic and make the impossible." '

Watch what the west does on Syria, not what it says

 'On both sides of the Atlantic, the intelligence and security establishments tend to take a more cautious line than the politicians and diplomats.'

 None of them have provided any weapons yet, so how cautious do they need to get?

 'Worries about jihadists continue to rank higher than the desire to topple the Assad regime.'

 Indeed. The proxy war theorists are talking nonsense.

Chemical gas kills one in Damascus

 Documentation of the Baniyas massacre has also reached the BBC. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22684359] Ian Pannell's editor is still calling it a 'massacre'.

 And his report was "Can't be sure what happened", "Country soaked in blood." Rather than it being obvious that it is the government militias that do sectarian massacres, and that government needs to be overthrown to stop the bloodshed. Nothing will ever be normal again while Assad or his power structure remains.

Too Much Information

 Just before I got in the bath, Martin Butcher, arms policy adviser for Oxfam, was on the BBC talking about Syria. I missed most of the interview, but he made three points at the end, to discourage support for the Syrian rebels, with all of which I disagree.

 1. If the West arms the rebels, Russia and Iran will increase their deliveries.
Not arming the rebels hasn't discouraged them. They deliver tonnes of weaponry every week, it's probably reached saturation point. It was estimated a while ago that the régime is paying the Russians a billion dollars a month, and would run out of money by June. I could go on.

 2. The FSA has no proper command and control structure.
Leaving aside how much truth there is in this (like many statements about the opposition, it has been widely retailed , while the actual statistics point in the opposite direction), when you are trying to overthrow the government, it is those with weapon supplies that can command allegiance.

 3. The FSA collaborates with the Islamist of Jabhat-al-Nusra on a daily basis.
They're trying to overthrow the same dictator. What's the FSA supposed to do, say they'll have a war against al-Nusra first, or stoke up a peace pipe and hope all the bad people go away?
Kevin Maguire and Faye Adams were similarly anti supporting the rebels on Sky's press preview last night.

 Fawaz Gerges has added:

 1. There is no military solution to the conflict.
The rebels have beaten back the régime without much isolated support, so I think this is a hypothesis designed to support a conclusion.

 2. This has mutated into a proxy war, no longer a fight between the opposition and the government.
It's a fight between the same Syrians who asked for justice in 2011, against a government bolstered by thousands of soldiers from Hezbollah, a lot of Russian and Iranian munitions, and diplomatic cover from Russia and China.

A left-wing response to left-wing delusions on Syria

 'As a Leftist activist, one would have thought you would mention – at least once, in passing – the popular uprising or the revolution, what Syrians think and want, or anything remotely related to people. Instead, all you obsess about is big politics from a statist perspective: regime change, foreign intervention, regional war, Israel, Iran, blah blah blah.'

The Wilder Side

 'In this edition, Nick Redmayne revisits the chaotic streets (and choking traffic) of Benghazi, to find out how Libya's 'rebel city' is faring after Gaddafi.

 "Nobody said liberty was neat and orderly." '

 It isn't true that Libyans were better off under Gaddafi, any more than Syrians are better off under Assad.

Syrian Revolution dance in Paris

 'Anti-Assad fighters dance in Paris.'

The Obstacles that Face the Syrian Rebels to Capture Damascus

 'The rebels will cut the regime’s supply routes from the south and east. This will allow them to advance in Damascus more quickly and let the grip on Assad tighten. In contrast, this strategy has a down side in which the Damascus residents will have to flee their homes to the countryside or to Lebanon due to the intensive shelling technique, which the regime will use to delay the rebels marching towards downtown Damascus.

 The complete capturing of Damascus is inevitable, but it is a way yet too far to accomplish, contrary to what is broadcasted in the media about the beginning of the battle in summer 2013.

 It would be accelerated if the west increase the aid for the Syrian rebels, supply them with sophisticated weapons and establish a buffer zone in Daraa’, but Mr.Obama is busy, right now, with the American middle class rather than the middle east issues. He does not want to be involved in a war that may damage the U.S economy.'

The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria: a decisive battle

 'What is happening in Syria is a real popular revolution that the Brotherhood had not planned for or expected; this is why the clumsiness of the Brotherhood all over the world is now understandable.'

 Note 4/4/15, the following video is now unavailable.Just another man being beaten and humiliated. Whoever compares the systematic crimes of the régime with the occasional offences of rebels (largely condemned by other rebels), is comparing two things of very different scale.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzwLoznpixc]

What is the U.S. REALLY doing in Syria?

STEPHEN M. WALT:

 'Is the US orchestrating a lot of arms shipments, sending intelligence information to various militias, and generally meddling in a very complicated and uncertain conflict?'

 No.

A truly surreal scene

 'A man is being dug from his would be grave and flashes a victory sign

 There are few words. Actually there are no words on Earth to describe the resilience of the people of Syria in the face of Assad’s brutality.

 This is why Syrians will defeat Assad. This is why we will eventually be free.'

Imperialist powers go into battle for spoils of Syria's revolution

 'The Syrian revolution has few friends. Western powers want to tame it, Russia wants it crushed, and none of them want it to succeed.

 But despite recent defeats, it remains resilient. There are few illusions left in Syria. The revolution is learning the bitter lesson that it can only rely on itself.'

Syria and Stop the War Coallition UK, or shame on you !

 'The Stop The War Coalition’s position on Syria has not changed. It is really a shame and in many aspects a treason of the principle of internationalism, while ignoring the sacrifices of the Syrian people in their struggle for freedom and dignity.'

The Men Behind The Wire

 ‪#‎yallasouriya‬ 9:06 pm on May 20, 2013
NuffSilence
.@AzmiBishara "Syrian revolution is the only revolution that persisted in face of air-force, artillery and missiles." ‪#‎Syria‬

Syrian rebels say assertions of chemical weapons use unlikely to curb violence

 ' “The rebels on the ground have stopped paying any attention to any investigation, meetings or statement by any Western countries regarding the Syrian revolution,” Mohamed Nahal, an activist based in Damascus who was reached by Skype, said Friday. The world has watched Assad batter Syria’s cities and towns with airstrikes, rockets, tank shells and Scud missiles for more than two years “without doing anything for the rebels so far,” he said.'

Saccharin And The War

 William Hague:"There is no purely military victory available."

 At the end of a speech in which he lamented that the Syrian people didn't have the arms to defend themselves against the guns and aircraft of the régime. Whose fault is that?

 And Douglas Alexander is wanting some serious pause for thought, because weapons might fall into the hands of extremists.

 Gung-ho is not the word.

Jabhat al-Nusra's rising stock in Syria

 'Even moderates back group with hard-line fighters despite radical ideology in absence of Western help to topple Assad.

 Thinking carefully about the post-Assad future is not high on many people's agendas. "All that is not important now. Now we should focus on staying alive." '

Syrian rebel leader Salim Idriss admits difficulty of unifying fighters

 “We need weapons,” said Hajj Saleh, a former primary school teacher who’s in command of the rebels in Heesh. “The Americans just want us to die slowly.”

Washington blunders yet again in Syria

 'Peace in Syria is desirable, but not at any price. American miscalculations will further damage the Syrian opposition and give Assad the means to use negotiations to impose his will on his depleted rivals and remain in office. Neither Russia nor Iran will challenge this. And with a short-sighted, risk-averse, amoral administration in Washington, they know they can get their way.'

Islamist fear drives Israel to support Assad survival

 ' “Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” one senior Israeli intelligence officer in the north of the country said.'

Why Did Iran's Foreign Minister Visit Jordan?

 More of the truth about the powers that want Assad to remain in place.

 'The source confirmed that the king seemed keen during his meeting with Salehi to express his understanding of Ahmadinejad's message and its contents, especially since the fall of the Syrian regime would not serve his interests or those of the stability of Jordan. The source revealed that the Jordanian king directly charged Salehi, who was soon to depart Jordan for Syria, with a "friendly message to President Assad that also included his hopes that [Assad] … come to a more realistic vision." '

Rights groups say thousands have vanished into the Syrian regime's torture dungeons

 'In Syria, the goal is to “terrorize the society and dry up the revolution,” said Anwar al-Bounni, a veteran defense lawyer and human rights campaigner in Damascus.'

The Structure and Organization of the Syrian Opposition

 'Without a stronger mechanism by the SMC to distribute supplies and arms, it is unlikely that directly arming the opposition will contribute significantly to the anti-Assad effort.'

This is nonsense.

Why did my Tunisian son join the rebels?

 "Let's imagine that the British government decided to attack a county with scud missiles to stamp out a peaceful rebellion. Europeans would be watching entire families being slaughtered day in day out. What would the young do? They would flock in droves to England to protect the oppressed."

 The reporting by Ahmed Maher is spun to the extreme to present those fighting in Syria with the rebels as evil sectarian jihadists. But to his credit, the truth shines through his spin.

Public Meeting: Syria - Stop Western Military Intervention

 [From the original link at Counterfire by Ady Cousins]

 'On 9 May 2013 Stop the War delivered an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron to Downing Street, urging the government to end its interventionist policy.'

 Next week they will demand the government put an end to creeping communism, and the week after that they stop the takeover of the civil service by leprechauns.

Appeasing Assad

 'Every Friday, the Syrian people make it known what they think of the so-called friends who talk about their concern but fail to deliver on their promises, whether it involves weapons or humanitarian assistance. People who are being assaulted by guns, tanks, planes and missiles – not to speak of imprisonment, torture and worse – are supposed to take heart when David Cameron talks about better night-vision goggles, while Barack Obama scratches his head about the use of chemical weapons.'

Let the World Shut Up

 'We have one thing to ask: whoever has something to do act now or forever hold their peace.'

Arab dictators can no longer monopolize resistance

 'The Syrian people engaged in their own peaceful uprising against a regime that was far more brutal than Hosni Mubarak’s, and Bashar Al-Assad’s regime responded with overwhelming force. If Hezbollah was truly a "resistance" movement for the autonomy of Arabs, Muslims and oppressed peoples everywhere, it would have supported the Syrian uprising.'

 Ditto for those in the West who claim to support the opposition, but consider opposing any support for the rebels their prime political task.

Syria's army is not quite what Israelis have been led to believe

 ' "The regime also said to the Syrian people for years that the army is there to fight the Zionist enemy," he said. "But in reality, the military capabilities were neglected and they focused on making the army an organization of internal repression. Most of the units have very old and faulty equipment and those that did get relatively new tanks and armored cars are loyal Alawite units, which are responsible foremostly with protecting the regime." '

Arms proliferation in Syria: a great excuse?

 'Syria will be about as useful a terrorist redoubt as, say, Luxembourg.'

The dangerous road traveled to Damascus

 'The Syrian people will not give up on their freedom until their very last breath of life.'

Syrian Rebel Victory a Matter of When, Not If, Odierno Says

 "From what I've seen, they have made some significant gains," Odierno said of the rebel fighters. "Their controlling the territory makes you think it's going to be difficult for the regime over time to survive."

The west and its allies cynically bleed Syria to weaken Iran

 'That has coincided with talk of creating an Israeli buffer zone inside Syria.'

 That's about as much into the fantastic as Seumas Milne goes this time, though everything he says is questionable in objectivity. The crux of his argument, they are all as bad as each other, is a lie. This was a peaceful revolution, which became an armed rebellion when the government starting shooting demonstrators a lot, and while Assad receives tonnes of Russian weaponry each week, the rebels get a little from the Gulf and nothing from the US. It is only the combination of naked brutality and the staying power of an inherently sectarian state that has got Assad this far, some rebalancing of the military struggle in favour of the Syrian people is the way to end the conflict.

 'The consequences for Syria have been multiple massacres, ethnic cleansing, torture, a humanitarian crisis and the risk of the country's breakup. The longer the war, the greater the danger of a Yugoslavian-style fragmentation into sectarian and ethnic enclaves. The Assad regime bears responsibility for that, of course. But so do those who have funded and fuelled the war, bleeding Syria and weakening the Arab world in the process.'

Syrians angry at Israel

 “Why hasn’t Syria attacked Israel in the last thirty years?,” 19 year old Hamid Shadi asked The Media Line at an Aleppo bakery. “How can Syria be Israel’s fiercest enemy if it never fights it?”

Assad’s backers on the left are ignoring reality

 Michael Karadjis:

 'The idea that the US wants to support these Islamists but is pretending not to is nothing but a fantasy indulged in by parts of the left who have decided to throw their lot in with the reactionary dictatorship of Assad.'

 Lindsey German is one of those who has stopped even bothering to pretend that she supports opposition to Assad.
[http://stopwar.org.uk/.../2442-israels-illegal-act-of-war...]