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'

Is a key Nato member plotting a fake terrorist attack to justify war on Syria?

 No.

 'The authenticity of the recording has not been verified, but nor have I heard any evidence to suggest that it is not authentic. It is not clear when this conversation took place, but its participants included intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, army deputy chief of staff Yasar Guler, and Foreign Ministry under secretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, and there is no doubt about their intentions.'

 If you have no verification, how can you be sure of their intentions?

 Stop The War's intro on their Facebook page is more ludicrously conspiratorial:

 'A fake terrorist attack by a Nato member to justify war on Syria? No reporting of that in the media's fairytale version of Western foreign policy.'

 Pot. Kettle. Black.

 'No matter how many times the consequences of ‘humanitarian interventions’ fail to live up to their expectations."

 Like the one that hasn't taken place in Syria.

This Haunting Photo Of A Stunned Syrian Girl Embodies Assad's Strategy

 'The nails and other shrapnel in the barrels pierce the city and mangle its people. There are a myriad of horrifying photos. The little girl, along with the distraught man in the background, depict the brutality of the crude devices while sparing the gore.'

Syria seen through the eyes of a British journalist and a Dutch jihadist

 Paul Woodward:

 'When a veteran reporter makes this kind of observation, even though he does not identify his source in any way at all, there will be many readers who treat Cockburn’s word (and thus that of an unidentified “observer”) as definitive. In so doing, they ignore the fact that this characterization of the Assad regime’s opponents perfectly mirrors the regime’s own propaganda.

 One can treat Assad’s claim that he is fighting terrorists as a statement of fact. Or, one can treat it as a cynical and effective piece of political messaging — messaging one of whose purposes is to corral some sympathy from those in the West who, paradoxically, both vehemently reject the military adventurism that the neoconservatives initiated after 9/11 and yet also fully embrace a neoconservative view of unified terrorism.'

Syria: Unlawful Air Attacks Terrorize Aleppo

 That's actual terrorism, that is.

Return to Homs at the Brixton Ritzy

 'It removes what director Talal Derki called “the political soap opera” of the civil war, leaving us with the uneasy feeling that Syria’s suffering is the responsibility of us all.'

The fall of the Syrian regime and Lebanon

 This is quite a cheerful outlook.

 'There is a joke which we used to tell one another as children and it goes like this: every morning, a dog used to have fun by chasing a goat. He would chase the goat until it was tired of running and eventually leave it alone and go about its way. One morning, the dog begin to chase the goat as usual; however, that day the goat decided that it would attack and it began to chase the dog head first, pointing its horns at it. The dog was surprised and began to stutter in disbelief, "Has this goat gone crazy?"

 The Assad regime fell the day that the "Syrian goat" went crazy and decided that it no longer wanted to play the Assad dog's game. The regime lost its ability to terrorise the Syrian people when the people of Daraa refused to submit to its guns. The "bank of terrorism" went bankrupt and its currency fell. This stands as a reminder to all of us that the survival of any authoritarian regime is the result of a complicated relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. It is not the terrorism practised by the Assad regime or the Syrian army's presence in Lebanon alone that ensured the regime's survival, but the presence of several parties in both Syria and Lebanon, which gave to and took from the regime much to its advantage and benefit.'

What for the future of tourism?

 'I don’t think you could find such a depth of history and culture anywhere else in the Middle East. The socialist leanings of Syria's dictatorship meant that they had kept out a lot of the trappings of modernisation in terms of fast food restaurants and lots of other associated things, so it was in a bit of a time warp – no McDonald’s, no Starbucks.'

 I don't bother with McDonald's or Starbucks either (Burger King used to have a very good beanburger), but I wouldn't describe this exclusion as socialist, more a way of protecting the régime's own capital accumulation without having US business take a large slice. Blander forms of capitalism aren't socialism.

 This is interesting though, showing how the ruling class can ride out the war on Syria's poor, but that the processes of capitalism can't stay on a war footing indefinitely. My hope is that when the next major defeat for the régime happens, those saying there is no point in continuing with a government that cannot govern the country will help put it out of its victims misery.

 'The owner of the company we used to work with said,"I was fed up. It was much better for me to go back to my own country that I love, even though it’s got great problems." And of course there’s no work, but he was at the top of the tree, so they probably have good savings that they can use to live off. I think he spends his days now going horse riding.'

The Syrian Opposition Coalition is not a lost cause

 'Our Free Syrian Army forces are expected to uphold international humanitarian law and the laws of war; for Assad's forces, the opposite is true and is indeed their modus operandi. All too often the media confuses the public by conflating all forces fighting the regime under the banner “rebels”. Yet the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria recently differentiated our “moderate nationalist forces” as separate from the extremist groups. We oversee the Free Syrian Army, which has been defending Syrian civilians and which is not only taking on Assad’s forces, but fighting against the extremists, Iran-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, and Iraqi sectarian militias.'

 'Our' and 'oversee' might be over-stating the case, but the rest is sound.

U.S. and U.N. are all talk and no action

 'The Obama administration is not lacking in options to stop the ongoing, horrific crimes against humanity in Syria. What it lacks is the will to act. It could order the Assad regime to authorize border crossings by aid convoys — something Ms.Power said would require only “a stroke of the pen” — or face the same airstrikes Mr.Obama threatened last summer. It could target blockade points with drone or missile strikes. It could provide rebels with the air defense weapons they need to stop helicopters from dropping barrel bombs on civilian housing, hospitals and schools. It could disable the bases used by regime aircraft.'

Qadri Jamil

 "There are some in the West who support this new fascism. I prefer those, who like in Spain in the 1930s, fought the fascists."

 What's funny about this is that RT give Qadri Jamil the title, "opposition politician". This is who the Russians think should be representing the opposition at peace talks, so they and the government can co-operate in fighting the terrorists. And the fascists, who I think are the same people.

 "Do you think Assad should step down, or would that leave Syria at the mercy of the country's enemies?"
 "I don't know why this is a question at the moment."

Nigel Farage claims Syrian rebels carried out chemical attack last summer

 'Only the Syrian and Russian governments suggest that the Syrian government did not fire chemical weapons at Ghouta.'

 And Nigel and sections of what used to be the Western Left.

 This, from an expert of Syrian Islamism, is worrying,

Thomas Pierret:

(1) 8/21 CW attack in Damascus was response to rebel inroads esp. in Jobar.
(2) today rebels are progressing in Jobar again and Syr amba to UN warns against false CW attack by rebels in Jobar.
(3) conclusion : Asad probably ready to use CW again to prevent rebels from reaching Abbassid square

Less of a Truce, More of a Military Occupation

 'Today, 90% of Talkalakh’s former residents are refugees or displaced. Even the rosy picture presented to the LA Times couldn’t conceal the fact that the town was largely empty of its inhabitants. There is a reason why Syrian refugees avoid the army as one would avoid a plague of zombies; bad things happen under a military occupation. Like so many other Syrian towns, cities and neighborhoods, Talkalakh was left devoid of inhabitants after the Syrian army moved in.'

 I began to notice when the régime recaptured neighbourhoods in Aleppo in late 2012 that the population never came back. You cannot rule if there is noone to rule.

No one controls the castle forever

 'History hasn’t come to an end in Syria. The damage to this magnificent fortress is testament to that. No one will control the Crac des Chevaliers forever.'

 Lindsey Hilsum has a piece on Channel 4 News tonight, I think about Homs, and they have a couple of other pieces on Syria, I don't know if they all on tonight.

 The reports have had some flashes of the truth that the problem in Syria is Assad, but especially the commentary has a lot of, "both sides have pounded the city", some rebel groups have been accused of", some Britons have gone to fight for jihad".

 Lindsey Hilsum points out that bombs have begun falling in the Alawite heartland of Lattakia because the government is losing it there.

Rebel general explains the Latakia battle

 "The Alawites on the coast are not our enemies—our disagreement with them is that they should have joined the revolution and spoken out against this brutal regime that is killing its people. But this won’t make us kill them—we fight only those who take up arms against us. There is no sectarianism in this revolution. Syria only has two sects: that of the regime and that of the revolution."

Syria: three years on – the people still want the fall of the regime

 'One of the great achievements of the Stop the War movement at its height was that it brought together Muslim and non-Muslims with organisations of the labour movement and broader progressive forces. Islamophobia in France that made demonstrations of this kind impossible there was rightly criticised by the British left at the time. But now we might ask: where then was the British left on Saturday 15 March?'

 There's a part about "military intervention" at the start that could do with being more to the point, and the attitude towards Banksy seems to be more that his With Syria piece is more making up for his earlier work, but it's good to see more people on the Left getting the point that those on the Left who don't support the Syrian revolution really aren't helping at all.

Spanish journalists freed in Syria after six-month ordeal

 'However, Syrian opposition and European officials say Isis can no longer command the influence it has had for much of the past year over parts of northern Syria.

 "As strong as they are in numbers, they have taken several strategic blows recently," one senior western official said. "They have been defeated in much of the north, and they will not be coming back there. The battle has been won. The regular opposition can now get back to fighting Assad." '

 That last line at the end is something that we never get from those worried about "intervention", whereby unwarranted fears that Barack Obama was going to re-enact the Iraq War or that he would be arming the very jihadists the regular rebels have been fighting, in reality meant that little pressure has been applied to enable the real revolutionaries in Syria to get the arms they need.

The Debunkation of Assadist media

 The Revolting Syrian has a new blog.

Help Syrians under siege

 'Here's my suggestion: Instead of sending video cameras to civilian rebels to film the carnage, or ambulances to take victims to gutted hospitals (the latest idea), the United States should get real. Send vetted rebel groups the heavy weapons they need to shoot down planes that bomb civilians, and to ensure that aid reaches the needy. Doing less makes us complicit in Assad's war crimes.'