No Holds Barred

 'Syria is the victim of a Western conspiracy, masterminded by the USA, Israel and the Gulf states. Some 160,000 dead, the destruction of almost the entire infrastructure, the disintegration of the country, the uprooting of half the population – all this is presented as self-defence by the heroic Syrian regime in its battle against ruthless imperialists.

 This may seem absurd, yet the Syrian regime's strategy of turning facts on their head for propaganda purposes has been remarkably successful to date.

 The Assad regime is currently doing all it can to present itself as the lesser evil or the secular alternative.

 Some Western media makers, experts and politicians would be happy to believe that it is – especially as the Syrian opposition is no stranger to propaganda either and it is becoming increasingly clear that many of Assad's opponents are not in favour of democracy. Yet the fact remains that the main responsibility for the emergence of the conflict, for the mass destruction and murder in Syria, lies with the Assad regime. On 3 June 2014, what's at stake in Syria is not "sawa", not jointly repairing the country, but whether the Assad clan will maintain its grip on power.'

Talking to Qusai Zakarya

 "Bashar al-Assad is the cancer. We cannot keep giving bandages; we need to operate and take the cancer out, and we need more support for the FSA."

Syria War SITREP After the Kerry-Lavrov Deal

 'The price Assad's side has paid for these limited gains has been so high that I don't see how they can endure much more to defeat a rebellion that does not lose its will to fight.

 And with our external arms and training and other support, there is no reason for the rebels to give up before the government does.'

Syrian Regime Hunts Down Men Dodging Mandatory Army Service

 'Across the country, an increasing number of would-be soldiers are ducking Syria's mandatory 18-month military service requirement.

 In most cases, the young men are either hiding out — or taking up arms for the opposition.

 Hossam, a 26-year-old from Hama, has been summoned by the Syrian army to fulfill the compulsory 18-month service required of all young men here. But three years into a conflict that has killed more than 62,800 fighters from all sides, he is refusing to comply.

 "The Syrian army is no longer the nation's army, and nothing motivates me to join it," he says.'

 And that's why Assad isn't going to win, however many bombs he drops trying. This fracturing for society is ignored by those who have looked at the balance of weaponry held by Assad and the opposition and assumed inevitable victory for the former.

Reading Between the Lines

 'Within the currently prevailing dynamics, in which moderate insurgent forces remain comparatively weak man-for-man, it could be argued that it is too soon for Friends of Syria states to encourage moderates to actively oppose Jabhat al-Nusra on the ground. In the immediate term, doing so would also pose a significant risk to the prospects of ongoing battles with the government. Like it or not, FSA-branded groups are coordinating dozens of ongoing operations with Jabhat al-Nusra across the country.

 The unrivalled ability of Jabhat al-Nusra suicide operatives to break through established military defenses makes it a force that the insurgency as a whole would struggle to live without, for now. After all, the recent gains in Idlib between 23-26 May were only made possible by at least six large suicide vehicle bombings, all by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters (including an American national, "Abu Hurayrah al-Amriki"). Without more sophisticated heavy weaponry, moderate insurgent forces have simply proven incapable of exerting anything matching equal force.

 This may be a controversial thing to admit, but without doing so, one risks further jeopardizing the prospects of the military opposition to one day attain at least a favorable political solution. The West's sustained failure to sufficiently support the moderate Syrian opposition means we are now faced with dynamics that cannot be overturned at the click of a finger.

 Recent coverage regarding President Obama's purported decision to establish a military program for training moderate insurgent forces is a much-needed first step on this road ahead. But make no mistake, much more will ne necessary to turn the tide of the conflict. Patience is wearing thin within moderate insurgent circles and without a genuine qualitative and quantitative enhancement in military support, it is only a matter of time before the West loses any of its remaining leverage over internal conflict dynamics.'

Jeffrey Goldberg’s Whitewashing of Obama’s Syria Policy

 'After more than three years of genocidal slaughter in Syria, it is time to face the fact that Barack Obama was never serious at all in seeing Assad deposed. Not only has the Obama administration never contemplated getting involved in Syria the same way it did in Libya, it has done everything in its power to make sure the Syrian opposition never got the kind of arms and assistance that would have changed the balance of power on the battlefield.'

‘Friends’ of #Syria: Right Direction, Wrong Speed

 ' "[The opposition] need[s] the force they have now, which is trying to protect local villages and try to harass the regime and level the playing field. They need something that eventually will be able to hold ground. And they need a counterterror capability – all of which is responsive to Syrians. And we are not on a path currently to provide that. … That’s the conversation that we [West and its allies — NGS] need to have."

 This is good news for the revolution but it is too little help and too slow in coming. It is a positive development compared to their previous policy of imposing a heavy arms embargo on the Free Syrian Army but negative compared to what can and should be done to the save the Syrian people and their revolution.'

Obama: Not every problem has military solution

 The BBC just had the strapline, "Obama Says There Is No Military Solution In Syria". Not quite true.

 'The president also discussed ways to provide more help for rebels in Syria battling Bashar al-Assad's government.'

Syrian pianist pursuing dream at UW-Eau Claire

 "I quickly got involved and was very enthusiastic about the revolution," said Hanana, who also worked as a music theory teacher at a Damascus music school. "In addition to teaching, I worked in community service just like everybody else because a lot of people needed help. But then friends started disappearing. Friends were kidnapped and tortured and many wouldn't come back. It was intense."

Britons accused of brutal killings

 'In a letter to The Times, Brig-Gen Abdulellah al-Basheer of the Free Syrian Army asks for help in curbing the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. He claims the group attacks opposition forces, not the Assad regime.

 "We the Syrian people now experience beheadings, crucifixions, beatings, murders, outdated methods of treating women, an obsolete approach to governing society. Many who participate in these activities are British. The UK and US governments must support us to defeat terrorism in Syria and prevent it from being exported to Europe and the US." '

Syrian cell phone war doc humbles Cannes

 'In Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, which Mohammed said took about 12 month to film, a young teenage protestor stripped to his underpants is forced to kiss the boots of an army officer before he is raped. "I don't know how the soldiers feel," said Mohammed. "They are also the victims of this horrible, corrupt and barbaric regime."

 In another image in the film, a father recounts how his son's finger nails were pulled out after he was caught writing anti-government messages on a wall. "Nobody knows what the coming days will bring us," said Bedrixan, who was in Cannes for the film's screening.'

Despite Assad’s assertions, civil war is not over

 'The Assad regime bears the majority of the blame for turning a beautiful country into a war zone. But there is much blame to go around. The Washington Post asked the question squarely: “Why did we allow Syria to become a hell on Earth?” That is true. Inaction by the United States has allowed Mr Al Assad to gain the upper hand. It is only because of the tenacity of the rebels that there is still a revolution to speak of.

 Syria is already a hell on Earth. The only question now is how long must it remain so before the international community involves itself in a meaningful way?'

U.S. inaction on Syria helped make it a hell on earth

 'For more than three years, President Obama has resisted advice from inside and outside his administration to abandon his passivity and do something to help Syria — not to send ground troops, the straw man his spokesmen regularly erect to fend off criticism, but rather to train and equip the rebels or to help patrol a safe zone for them to evade Mr. Assad’s depredations. Mr.Obama’s excuses have varied: Mr. Assad’s downfall was inevitable with or without U.S. involvement; the rebels weren’t deserving of U.S. help; anything the United States did would make things worse.

 But without U.S. involvement, the worst-case predictions are coming true: More than 160,000 people have been killed, more than 9 million have been displaced from their homes, and terrorists allied with al-Qaeda are establishing safe zones from which they can attack Europe and the United States.'

Video shows chlorine gas floating in streets

 'A freelance photographer told Reuters he arrived at the scene of the attack an hour after a helicopter dropped the bomb.

 "The smell of chlorine was very obvious. It smelt like vinegar, or bleach. I started to cough and hyperventilate. My eyes were burning," he said.'

Mercy Corps forced to close Damascus operations

 'Leading provider of aid in Syria told by Assad officials not to operate in opposition-held areas in defiance of UN resolution.

 "Humanitarian relief has become so politicised because it was a big step for the Syrians to acknowledge that they could no longer control the whole country and for Russia to acknowledge that those who were suffering were real people, not terrorists. It defied both their narratives." '

 It also disrupts the narrative of those "anti-imperialists" for whom there is no suffering if it is at the hands of a non-Western backed dictator, there aren't really any rebel-held areas, there is no genocidal policy by the régime.

Russia blocks ICC action on Syria, heightening 'anti-war' contradiction

 'The "anti-war" left is simply getting everything backwards this time—essentially serving as the propaganda arm of a fascistic one-family regime that continues even now to use chemical weapons against its own people.

 While ultimately, I suppose I share Anderson's position of supporting the Syrian revolution while opposing US military intervention, I can't merely state "Against US attacks!" and "Against the Assad regime!" (with exclamation points), as if there were no contradiction there. The Syrian left-opposition groups that oppose Western intervention, like the Revolutionary Left Current, are now a fairly marginal force within the civil resistance movement—which has itself been significantly sidelined by the armed insurgent groups.

 And the notion that anti-imperialist principles mean we must oppose even intervention against a genocidal regime strikes me as hardly less problematic than supporting intervention. I see this as a genuine moral dilemma. But I'm clear on this: We, as "anti-war" voices in the West must put solidarity with the Syrian revolution front and center—not opposing purely hypothetical military adventures (as opposed to Assad's extremely real ones), or imaginary "destabilization" campaigns.'

For those who think Labour chose the wrong Miliband …

 Owen Jones' scenario for what would have happened if David Miliband had been leader of the Labour Party shows what a wanker Owen Jones is.

 'Labour's support for the disastrous US-British bombing of Syria brought back bad memories of Blair and Iraq. And as well as triggering regional conflict, the intervention appeared to shore up Syrian support for President Assad. The west was now portrayed as the new allies of al-Qaida. As the tide turned in favour of the dictator, every time a rebel-held town fell to the regime, the misjudged western bombing campaign was blamed.'

The West must stay the course in southern Syria

 A number of untruths about weaponry in Syria have been designed to discourage support for the Syrian rebels. One of the more transparently baseless was that whatever weaponry was provided by the West or their puppets/puppet-masters in the Persian Gulf, the Russians would simply provide more to Assad in retaliation, without making it clear how bombing the shit out of more civilian neighbourhoods would help him win the war or be acceptable blackmail to give in to.

 And as it turned out the Russians have continued to fight the Syrian war on the cheap, letting the Iranians and Hezbollah make themselves unpopular by doing the actual murdering in Syria. And there were every possible variety of Don't You Know You'd Only Be Creating A Level Killing Field? by those casting this as a civil war with roughly equal support to both sides, rather than a revolution where only those committed to the régime don't want it gone, with only its massive firepower advantage keeping it on life support. But rather than Assad being an eternal feature, as the war drags on, more people in the government held areas will wonder if the only way for it to end is for Assad to go, which will cause the torturers and murder gangs that are the government forces to crack down on any indication of dissent what soever, creating an intolerable situation with revolution the only tolerable answer.

 If Assad does persist, there is going to be exactly the opposite result to that the realists suggest, not a calming of the situation, but an increase in all the indicators of instability. It will be hard to see how the régime will be able to present itself as at all legitimate when it gets to force more than half the population out of the country entirely, but may stagger on if it can't be knocked over. Again in contrast to the realists, the evidence of the last three years is that it is the lack of support to those most interested in a striaghtforward revolution that has encouraged the growth of extreme Islamism. If Assad persists, the entire country isn't going to turn into an al-Qaida support group, but it will be far more messed up than it ever had the need to be.



 There is quite an accurate assessment of the size of the rebel forces, but much less understanding of the relationship between them, by another pro-Israeli analyst here*, whose analysis falls short because he looks at all the groups through the focus of their expressed attitude towards Israel, rather than the struggle in Syria they are actually engaged in. The piece is worth reading though, and I might get back to it at some point.

 'As an extremist group which owes its existence to the West’s reluctance to act in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra’s behavior in Deraa is a clear sign of desperation. The aging US-made TOW anti-tank missiles which recently appeared in the hands of approximately 12 FSA units have already boosted American credibility in both northern and southern Syria.

 The Assad regime and jihadist rebels are undoubtedly pinning their hopes on the West’s track record of abandoning Syria’s moderates at the most inopportune times.

 In its efforts to discredit Western involvement, Nusra will likely spare no effort to get its hands on some of these systems. As this media-savvy group is surely aware, videos of their fighters with these weapons appearing on American television screens will deter the Obama administration from transferring even more potent arms into the coffers of Syria’s rapidly-rebounding moderates. With President Obama weighing a request by Syrian National Coalition leader Ahmed Jarba to provide anti-aircraft missiles to selected rebel units, Nusra’s window of opportunity is closing.'

*[http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180622…]

The rebel leader behind tunnel bombs

 'If Assad had bombed your family and friends, I'm pretty sure anyone with the nads and know-how would have done the same.'

How the West reports the Syrian news

 Yassin al-Haj Saleh:

 'I believe that if what’s happened to us over the past three years happened in Britain, and if Tony Blair had destroyed a quarter of Birmingham, for example, and had already killed 25,000 of its inhabitants in a previous generation, then passed on the rule of the United Kingdom to his son who had studied medicine in Syria, and when a revolution broke out against Blair Jr., he carried out massacres in scores of British towns, and attacked Bradford with chemical weapons, and destroyed Sheffield with war planes, and launched Scud missiles on Manchester, and killed 11,000 Britons with torture and starvation in the prisons of his security forces….if something approaching this happened, the British would behave in a very similar manner to the way Syrians are acting today. We’d see the appearance of narrow-minded extremists, and maybe Blair Jr. would secretly fund some extremist groups so that he could say he’s fighting against terrorism, etc., etc..

 And maybe some Syrian journalists who knew a few words of English would attribute, in their media coverage, all of the violence and brutality to the nature of Britain and the religion of her inhabitants, or to a conspiracy by India, Egypt and France against the Blair Jr. government, which opposes Indian imperialism!'

Searching for a ‘realistic’ solution in Syria has inflamed the conflict

 Idrees Ahmad:

 'If neoconservatism is an ideology of intervention, realism sustains the status quo – sometimes to equally disastrous effect.

 Syria is once again testing the limits of realism.

 The US could have potentially played a constructive role in Syria. Instead, it offered hot rhetoric and minimal support. Indeed, it placed restrictions on the supply of weapons to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) for fear that they might be turned on its ally, Israel.

 Starved for arms, the FSA withered and the vacuum was filled by the hardline Jabhat Al Nusra and the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – the latter with the tacit approval of the regime. For Mr Al Assad, the jihadists were a boon. He could cite them to launder his repression as a war against terrorism.

 The rhetoric played well in Washington – especially with realists. Just as realists had justified support for some of the more odious regimes during the Cold War on “national interest” grounds, some are now arguing for a rapprochement with Mr Al Assad to thwart terrorists.

 “Do we really want the alternative” – Mr Crocker asks, for example – “a major country at the heart of the Arab world in the hands of Al Qaeda?” Mr Al Assad may be bad, he says, but the alternative “is something worse”. Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden echoes this assessment.

 This is a false choice. True, Mr Al Assad is winning, but that is only because he has complete impunity. His air force bombs at will; his armour is impenetrable to most of the rebels’ rudimentary arms; he even gets away with using chemical weapons.All of this could change if his air force were made vulnerable. This could be achieved either by arming the rebels with more anti-aircraft weapons or by imposing a no-fly zone.'

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.