Remember Our Syrian Allies

 'But even this year, in an effort to defend past hesitation about supporting the moderate rebels, officials have talked about them as some kind of civilian rabble. The moderate opposition and its fighters were never that, but if we’re still saying so, it undercuts confidence within Syria and the region about America’s commitment to implementing our policy now.'

Here's What The World Should Know

 "We thought that if we fight for the same values that you announce and you pledge for, we thought that you would help us. Because, in the end, if all of us in the world implement the same values of freedom and dignity and equality, that would bring peace for all human beings. But in the end, we were disappointed."

My journey to the land of blessing, and torture

 From 2012.

 Moazzam Begg:

 'On the outskirts of the city of Aleppo I stayed with a group of pious, well-educated, relatively young and very hospitable fighters. They were as concerned about the country’s future and avoiding a repeat of the Iraqi-style disaster as they were with ridding the country of Bashar al-Assad. They reminded me of the good that still exists in Syria, despite the betrayal they've faced from their own government - and others. Like many of the people leading the rebels several had been imprisoned and survived tragedies like the 2008 Sednaya prison massacre and the “underground tombs” and “graves” of Palestine Branch Military Intelligence (Fara’ Falasteen).

 Many western leaders and senior former Syrian ministers have predicted the imminent downfall of the house of Assad. If Palestine Branch is captured by the rebels and intelligence secrets are laid bare, just as they had once been in Tripoli, Scotland Yard will have its hands full- again, and we’ll hear more about British ministers suffering amnesia, instead of justice.'

Kerry: Assad has violated chemical arms pact

 “We believe there is evidence of Assad’s use of chlorine, so he’s in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

 Well, he has, for months. There aren't going to be airstrikes on Assad, any more than there were last year, but this does suggest that the US isn't positioning itself to be Assad's friend.

Syrian Kurds paying price of disharmony

 Davutoğlu used to be the hero of the anti-imperialists. In reality I think he's committed to the advance of the Turkish state and capital. But rather than encouraging ISIS by giving them guided tours to the Syrian border, they have found themselves unable to co-exist with Assad and so willing to encourage his replacement with a more democratic system; but their first priority has been to keep in with the Americans, which has meant doing as little as possible to help up until now.

 'Davutoğlu said the government contacted the Kurdish PYD and the FSA last year and told them to act together to "avert the terror threat and regime attacks in the northern belt."

 He added: "If the PYD, instead of cooperating with the regime, had joined forces with the FSA and with the opposition, ISIS would not have found that much opportunity in the field." '

Terrorism can’t be fought effectively without defeating the Assad regime

 'The murderer of Damascus will not come out of this crisis with the same opportunities he has had since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. When the Arab and international coalition began striking [ISIL] in Syria, Al Assad wanted to declare himself an ally of the international community and its partner in the war against terrorism, so as not to lose face before his own community and, above all, before Hizbollah that is fighting against Syrians on his behalf and the Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, who oversees security in Damascus. In the meantime, the international community is fighting ISIL. So, what is Mr Al Assad’s role? What exactly is he doing?'

Assad loyalists concerned by rise of paramilitaries

 Lina Sinjab:

 'Only a just deal that prevented reprisals and brought to justice those responsible for war crimes would allow the dust to settle.'

 Exactly, but the idea of negotiating an Iran friendly deal that sends the Assads off but keeps the rest of the criminal régime intact is not going to help Syrians forget, or even escape the genocide, as the régime would still be asserting its legitimacy by Assad's bloody methods. 

 Reports from inside régime held areas have dominated what news coverage there is of Syria, when you face torture for saying the wrong thing, that isn't usually a good way to get an objective picture. But the inability to control the activities of the gangs of thugs who organise the reign of terror in the government held areas seems like another sign of how this hollowed out state cannot go on for long, can never govern Syria as a state authority again; and the pretence that this is a sectarian civil war rather than a revolution should be exposed.

 Not helped by the killing of several dozen schoolchildren* yesterday, I would tend to guess by Jabhat al-Nusra, in Homs, which has led each Russia Today news broadcast since. I expect it will be condemned by most opposition groups, and that will go unreported, and I hope those responsible are brought to justice, just as those in Assad's forces who commit such crimes day in, day out, should be.

 I'm not sure I agree with everything in this piece** by Ben Allinson-Davies. I think it may be a little too conspiratorial about the US administration, that Obama doesn't read his intelligence briefings does suggest blundering rather than calculation drives the policy. The point is well made that Syrians are being forever asked to prove that they are moderate Muslims (even if they aren't sectarian the religious label is imposed on them. A woman who says she is against the Assad régime, and her baby is Sunni but the mama is Shia, popped up on my Timeline this morning. How are we supposed to pigeonhole her?) while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is allowed automatic membership of the moderate club. And this is bang on:

 'The way to “defeat” a group that espouses Salafist-jihadism is never to bomb it. It will just legitimise its uncompromising message, and gain it a stronger following; bombing these groups will give them legitimacy. The key is to ARM the Free Syrian Army wholesale; with anti-tank weapons to defeat Assad’s armour, anti-aircraft weapons to blow his helicopters and jets out of the skies, and weapons and ammunition to sustain them in battle. Half the reason why so many FSA members left for al-Nusra is because al-Nusra has everything the FSA doesn’t have, from money to weapons. The key is to take that power OUT of their hands. If the FSA had everything it needed, and more, much of Nusra’s power would significantly weaken: why them if the FSA has everything you need?

 If only we lived in a parallel universe in which Obama realised that he would gain firm, long-lasting allies in Syria if he armed the revolutionaries from the start, eradicated terrorism in Syria at its roots by helping them to overthrow the regime (which has created the jihadist threat in order to undermine the revolution) and tried not to use the heroic Syrian people as anti-ISIS cannon fodder.'
*[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/10/2/children-killed-in-homs-double-blast]
**[https://web.archive.org/web/20150718031029/https://unfetteredfreedom.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/obama-can-read-when-it-suits-him/]

Hama maintains its calm amid Syrian storm

 'Soumar Ali (a pseudonym), a member of the pro-regime National Defense Forces, told Al-Monitor, “The city’s residents are peaceful; we know they are opposed to the regime and they may hate us, but they did not use their arms against us. The city is a big opposition bloc and certainly, if residents are given the chance, they will fill the squares as they did before. We are trying to win them over to our side since we are in daily contact with them. However, the fact that authorities allowed some foreign fighters from among those who participated in the battles of the countryside to come to the city foretells the failure of all our efforts.” '

Time running out to save Syria’s soul

 'No bombs have hit the assets of the Assad regime, the largest purveyor of death and chaos in Syria. As a result of this omission, the Syrian people are starting to feel a sense of betrayal. The United States and its international coalition can correct this path by taking steps to eliminate Assad’s ability to kill civilians and to empower moderate opposition forces and local governance to fill the vacuum as ISIS retreats.'

Deluded and deplorable

 'It is about time Assad’s regime admitted it has absolutely no concern for the borders or sovereignty of Syria. It has demonstrated clearly over the last three years that it cares about the survival of the regime, and only the survival of the regime, even if that means the whole country is destroyed in the process.

 Moallem went on to say Damascus was committed to a political solution to the crisis, while at the same time regime aircraft are raining down barrel bombs on Aleppo and elsewhere across the country. It is hard to imagine a single person in the audience at the U.N. could have taken his words seriously.

 He also urged refugees – now half the Syrian population, if we count internally displaced people – to return to the country, without mention of why they were forced to leave in the first place, and while ignoring the fact that the situation on the ground has only worsened, and that he was actually inviting them back to their likely deaths.'

Bashar Al-Assad is the main Syrian terrorist

 Yassin Al-Haj Saleh:

 'Obama confirms his inability to provide an adequate policy when he reduces the situation to a Sunni-Shiite confrontation instead of mentioning the socio-political dimension of the conflict and the exceptional injustice that permeates the area. By assigning our struggle a meaningless old feud, this powerful man robs us of our cause, anything that has to do with justice, freedom, equality and human dignity.'

United States has a role and responsibility in Syria

 'In the eyes of the regime, no rules of war exist. Thus hospitals, residential areas, mosques, and churches, have all been targeted and the security branches are overflowing with stories of people dying under torture. Thus, we find the Syrian people struggling for the three past years not just to maintain their resistance, but, more importantly, their coherence against a policy that aims to break them.

 Syria today is undergoing a transition. Large swathes of Syria are liberated and beyond the reach of the government. Bashar al-Assad has turned from the president of a country into the mayor of Damascus and some of its suburbs. He is unable to leave his palace without being preceded by his military. Also al-Assad’s loss of control over the border crossings with Turkey and Iraq means, in a political sense, that he has lost the ability to establish his rule over strategically important geographical areas. Though he certainly can shell and burn these places, he cannot regain control over them.

 Nonetheless these liberated areas, at the same time, are mostly disconnected geographically and can be easily targeted from the air, which prevents them from becoming safe zones. The absence of a central authority makes it difficult and complicated to manage them. Basically, the more Assad stays in his palace, the more painful the transition becomes.The U.S. has a responsibility and role to help the Syrian people end this nightmare and open a democratic future for them. Of course, the air strikes against ISIL announced by President Obama are a good step. But much more important, the Obama Administration needs a strategy to end the Assad government which allowed ISIL to rise.'

U.S. doesn’t face much threat from Syria’s air power

 'The Assad regime has dropped thousands of so-called “barrel bombs” — oil drums packed with explosive fertilizer that flight crews literally pick up and hurl out of helicopters. It’s a brutal and indiscriminate method of warfare. Russia and Iran play a large role in keeping the Syrian Air Force in the fight. Moscow is Syria’s largest arms supplier and has been for years.'

Cameron on Marr

 Cameron's been very good in an Andrew Marr interview on Syria. He did call the Syrian National Coalition the Syrian National Opposition at the start, but he'd corrected himself by the end. But he'd got his talking points fairly straight, Assad is the cause of the rise of ISIS, we need to support the SNC and the FSA. Marr repeated Galloway's lie that the FSA doesn't exist, which Cameron wasn't confident enough in his material to reply directly to, but repeated that Assad's army had only made things worse. The actions of the government aren't likely to be that helpful, and in Iraq may not be at all, but at least there is some pressure on the government as a result of this prognosis to ensure that some shoddy deal to keep Assad in power is not made.

 Just to make this clear once again, I'm not a fan of Cameron or his politics. I'd tend to agree with Henry David Thoreau that those who serve the state best, "necessarily resist it for the most part; and are commonly treated as enemies by it."

‘Western hypocrisies have been driving support for extremism’

 There's a lot wrong with Nick Cohen. But this is right.

 'The root cause of Islamic State is Shia sectarianism in Iraq and sectarian mass murder in Syria. Mohammed Antabli, a leader of Syrian exiles in Britain, told me how he took British and European politicians to Turkey’s border with Syria at the start of the war and warned them that Islamism would flourish if the west did nothing for the moderate opposition. And so it has.
You will remember hearing, or perhaps said yourself, that we must not alienate “the Arab street”. Kassem Eid, an opposition activist now in exile in the US, said what streets were left in Syria were alienated beyond measure. The democratic world has done nothing. No no-fly zone. No attempt to slow Assad down, even for a day, even when he crossed Obama’s “red line” on chemical weapons. Every Syrian activist I spoke to repeated his assertion that western hypocrisies were driving support for Islamism.

 A great evil has been done to Syria. I cannot see how any western project against Islamic State can prosper until the “conscience of the world” provides redress by saying it will not tolerate the continuation of the Assad regime. At present, however, the world won’t even acknowledge evil’s existence. We must expect evil in return.'

 And much preferable on Syria to idiots who say things like this:

 "So in one year, Cameron has proposed bombing all warring factions in Syria, with the exception of the secular liberal one that doesn't exist."
[https://twitter.com/flying_rodent/status/515437838805258241]

The West’s Syria policy has been shaped by media missionaries

 Muhammad Idrees Ahmad:

 'Cockburn eschews the bombastic judgments of his colleague Robert Fisk. Instead he uses references, analogies and elisions to mark the distribution of good and evil.
Superlatives are reserved exclusively for the opposition. They are depicted as “head choppers”, reminiscent of the Nazis. Their crimes are vividly described. To the extent that the regime’s misdeeds receive attention, they are described in general terms, often as preludes to another account of rebel barbarity.

 Yet it is accounts such as these that are shaping opinion – and even policy. Syrians, who are already trapped between the regime and ISIL, have also to endure the slings and arrows of hack missionaries with ideological axes to grind.'

Tunisia's president says IS, Syrian regime must go

 "The issue of the Syrian regime is of utmost concern, as it is the region’s most criminal regime, and we should want nothing from it except its downfall. Therefore, we must support any efforts leading to this end. In any case, today we face a choice between the plague and smallpox. But we must choose neither IS nor the Syrian regime; both must go, for the sake of a pluralistic democratic system."



Note 6/4/25, original link broken.

Demos denounce failure to act against regime

 'Many supporters of the uprising are also incensed that the U.S.-led airstrikes have targeted the Nusra Front and claim they have extended, or will likely extend, to conservative Islamist militias such as Ahrar al-Sham and others.

 While the hard-liners aren’t necessarily widely popular, supporters of the uprising are angry that these other groups are being lumped together with ISIS although they – unlike the notorious Al-Qaeda splinter group – have devoted much of their energy to battling regime forces.

 In a village in Deraa, a protester held a sign questioning “if you believe Islamic groups are responsible for terror ... what about Hezbollah?” '

A punch in the mouth from ISIS

 To defeat the Sunni extremists in Syria, Patrick Cockburn tells us we need to link up with the sectarian murderers who have been massacring Sunnis in Syria. Yeah, that'll work.

 'If Isis is to be combated effectively, then the US, Britain and their allies need to establish a closer relationship with those who are actually fighting Isis, which currently include the Syrian Army, the Syrian Kurds, Hezbollah of Lebanon, Iranian-backed militias and Iran itself.'

Syria, squeezed between the sides, falling through the cracks

 'Together, the FSA and the Coalition have the capability to neuter ISIS and eliminate their ability to control exposed areas (like oil fields), which will condemn them to a slow but unstoppable decline and eventually destruction at the hands of revolutionary Syrians, who actually have the support of the population. Will the US do this? There are serious doubts. But this should be the goal, and not ‘cosmetic’ attacks on ISIS “HQs”.'

US in Syria: nothing has changed but the enemy

 Simon Tisdall is typical of those claiming that the US is working for Assad, in the hope that it will come true, so it might bear a little deconstruction.

 'Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s reviled strongman.'

 Supposedly this indicates that Tisdall doesn't like Assad, in reality it is a variation on Fisk's "We have been told we have to hate Assad," making out that it is Western propaganda saying he's a bad man.

 'Assad remains accused of committing war crimes after last year’s chemical weapons attacks on civilians and other alleged atrocities.'

 Yes he does, because he committed them, and still is. To call them accusations and allegations is again to indicate the opposite.

 'Nor are the claims of the Syrian propagandists entirely lacking in truth. The US has opened up indirect lines of communication with Damascus in recent weeks. It did not seek permission for this week’s air strikes, but it did inform Assad’s ambassador at the UN in advance of the attacks.'

 It told the ambassador that there would be attacks, but not where or when, and stressed there would be no co-operation. Tisdall's claim that the Syrians are propagandists (who would then cease to be such terrible propagandists) is lacking in truth.

 'Since then, a great deal of water has passed under the bridge. Mr Cameron, whose grasp of Middle Eastern politics is negligible, has changed sides. Attacking President Assad is no longer his priority. He now wants to intervene on the side of the Syrian government, against that same murderous band of fanatics.'

 I'm not even going to check if there's any more to Peter Oborne's claim.

 'Further evidence that Obama and Assad are now on the same team is evinced from this week’s simultaneous US air strike on the Khorasan group, part of the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra Front and Assad’s sworn foe. “Supporters of the Syrian government say hitting the Nusra Front is proof that the US has switched sides,” the New York Times reported. “‘Of course coordination exists,’ said a pro-government Syrian journalist speaking on the condition of anonymity. ‘How else do you explain the strikes on Nusra?’ ” '

 Of course Tisdall's Assadist contacts will say that. I'd explain the attacks, unco-ordinated with Assad, as down to America's dislike of al-Qaida style groups it fears might attack it, whether the intelligence turns out to be any good, or this Khorasan group turns out to be an invention.

 'Obama’s Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, are alarmed that the decision by Washington to dive into the middle of Syria’s civil war could let Assad off the hook. These countries have long demanded a bigger role for the US in ending the Syrian mayhem, but now they have got it, they worry that the Americans are prioritising counter-terrorism ahead of the removal of the Assad regime.

 Their hope in adding their military weight to the coalition is that the battle against Isis will morph into a bigger, broader push to end the Syrian civil war, pacify the country as a whole, and create a new, inclusive government in Damascus. Thus for the Gulf states, unlike Britain, France and the US, mission creep is both essential and desirable.'

 These two paragraphs sit a bit oddly, as it cuts across the idea that the Americans have been gung-ho. But taking it in the direction that the Gulf states want to drag America into another war, rather than wishing they'd let the Syrian rebels get arms, keeps the narrative that we should be more scared of the US than Assad and ISIS.

 'News reports from Damascus say the Syrian army moved this week to take full control of a formerly insurgent-held area north-east of the capital. Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV said the area, Adra al-Omalia, was about 19 miles from central Damascus.'

 "News reports". Suddenly it's not propaganda, just news via the sectarian killers of Hezbollah. Dozens of Hezbollah were apparently killed in the Qalamoun today, but any Assad victory can be an indication that he's winning the war when that would more comfortably fit your expectations.

 'The advance could be the ominous first instalment of a new push against the pro-western rebels Obama has vowed to support but whose cause is now taking second place to the fight against Isis. The price of victory over Isis may be an Assad victory in Syria.'

 So Assad isn't making a priority of the fight against ISIS? What a surprise. One reason I could suggest that this analysis fails is that a final Assad victory over the rebels would destroy Obama's presidency, given the flak he's already getting for the failure to support the Free Syrian Army in 2012.

 'All the same, such distortions are to be expected, given the convoluted and confusing twists in American decision-making over the past year. Obama was ready to attack Assad in spring 2013, albeit reluctantly, and was only prevented from doing so by a vote against war in the British parliament.'

 It's possible that a sub-editor replaced autumn 2013 with spring 2013, or that Tisdall can't get his basic facts right. I don't think there have been convoluted twists in American policy. They have been faced with a revolution in someone else's sphere of influence, so just as the Soviet Union did with revolts in America's allies, it has offered rhetorical opposition and a little practical support, to maintain influence with the opposition and because it reflects its ideology, but has been concerned to keep the conflict confined within the international state system, and that it takes as few risks with its own forces where its vital interests are not concerned.

Training the ‘moderates’

 'There is no shortage of opposition fighters in Syria, and some opposition members note that most of the moderate forces in the Syrian military opposition are former army officers and soldiers who have defected. Their number is perhaps close to 75,000.

 Some 10,000 former policemen have also left Syria and are living in camps in Turkey and Jordan. None of these has been welcomed into the ranks of the existing armed groups, perhaps because their training contrasts with the haphazard ways of the militant outfits.

 If the US really wants to see a moderate opposition army take form in Syria, it could call on the services of tens of thousands of well-trained professionals. To form such a force, all the US would have to do would be to find a way of providing quality weapons to former army and police personnel.

 Syria also has an ample supply of Islamist and non-Islamist groups willing to fight both the regime and the extremists. Many of these groups have obtained valuable combat experience over the past few years, including the Hazm Movement, the Noureddin Zenki Brigade, the 13th Battalion, the 101st Battalion, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, and others. Taken together, these groups contain some 50,000 men.'

The Resilience of Moderate Syrian Rebels

 Felix Legrand:

 'The best strategy to defeat ISIS in Syria was successfully tested in Idlib
province and Aleppo city in early 2014. Sunni-led moderate groups supported by the local population managed to remove ISIS from these areas. Their success was largely due the fact that they are solidly embedded in the local communities.

 The most dangerous strategy for defeating ISIS in Syria would be to rely on the Syrian regime and their allied Shia militias to fight ISIS. This would stoke the flames of sectarianism and play into the hands of ISIS, increasing their recruitment capacity and zealousness.'

Say no to war on Syria and Iraq

 I don't think this is true. Most of the opposition has opposed the airstrikes or called them counter-productive without support for the fight against Assad. The second line tends to confirm the belief that the revolutionary left has written off the actual movement for revolution in Syria, counterposing a mass movement of the future when all the Islamists and American proxies have gone away. This is the actual revolutionary left, not those who all along wanted to leave the Syrian people to Assad's mercies in the name of anti-imperialism, which makes it more of a shame.

 'Ghayath added that there is a “consensus” among rebel groups to welcome the West.

 “The regime and sections of the opposition are competing to become the most effective US ally in the battle against Islamic State,” he said.

 “Only a popular mass movement is capable of confronting it and the authoritarian regimes.” '

Stumblin' In

 Norman Smith, BBC political correspondent: "We are fighting alongside Assad against the people we would have been allied with last year."

 That Norman mixes up ISIS with the rebels against Assad should disqualify him from pontificating for a news broadcaster, but there you are.

Alaa, an ambulance driver, feeds cats in Masaken Hanano

 'Alaa, an ambulance driver, feeds cats in Masaken Hanano, Aleppo, Sept. 24, 2014. Alaa buys about $4 of meat everyday to feed about 150 abandoned cats in Masaken Hanano, a neigborhood in Aleppo that has been abandoned because of shelling from forces loyal to Syria's president Bashar Al-Assad on it. Alaa said that he has been feeding and taking care of the cats for over 2 months.'

8 reminders of how horrible Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been

 'When it comes to Assad's thugs, it seems that no person is too young to be tortured. One in five detainees is a minor, says HRW.

 GlobalPost spoke with some of the children tortured and imprisoned by the regime. Their stories are horrifying.'

'There's no hope left': the Syrian refugee camp that is becoming a township

 Robin Yassin-Kassab:

 'Six months ago, when I last visited, I was able to travel deep into liberated Syria – as far as Kafranbel in the south of Idlib province – with nothing to fear from the Free Army fighters manning checkpoints. This time I didn’t dare go as far as Atmeh village, sitting on the nearby hilltop, because it was occupied by the al-Qa’ida franchise the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In June the camp’s residents referred derisively to the mainly foreign jihadists as ‘the spicy crew’. Now they are a real threat – abducting and often murdering revolutionary activists, Free Army fighters, and journalists. This development contributes greatly to the gloom of the camp’s residents. (At the time of writing the Free Army and more mainstream Islamic battalions are finally striking back at ISIS, fighting and arresting its cadres.)'



Note 7/4/25, original link from February 2014.

What Woman was Ever Born To Such Misfortune?

 'It was Saturday; we were told that the secret police were randomly raiding houses in Homs.... There had been incidents of rape and kidnapping, so my older brother ... drove us to Al Bayyada. We were seven women and 25 children. It was a pickup truck.... It was raining heavily on us and the children were screaming and crying.'

Republicans Shouldn’t Stoke International Revolution

 'McCain and Graham lay blame on the lawn of the White House for four reasons: Obama failed to keep tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely; he failed to do enough to arm and train “moderate” Syrian rebels against Bashar Assad; he failed to bomb Assad after the now-infamous chemical weapons attack/“red line” walkback; and he didn’t bomb the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq in late 2013.'

 Good for them.

Shock and Awe versus Dentists, Farmers and Students

 Robin Yassin-Kassab:

 'A sensible answer to Nusra would be to provide weapons and funds to Free Army forces who would then be in a position to gradually draw men from the organisation, slowly making it irrelevant (most men don’t care about the ideology of their militia’s leadership; they care about food and ammunition). But the Americans are allergic to working with the people on the ground most immediately concerned by the outcome, and bomb from the air instead. Nusra is now abandoning front line positions (in some areas the regime may be able to take immediate advantage). One Nusra leader has already spoken of an alliance with ISIS against the Americans.'

'We were like guerrilla filmmakers'

 ' "Red Lines" will be screened in the UK at the Rich Mix cinema in east London on Sept. 25.
Mouaz, now a U.S. citizen, was also warning the U.S. authorities: "if they don't support the moderate opposition and give them the support they need, they are going to be overrun and subsumed by the extremists. He was saying this three years ago," Kalin recalls.

 For Kalin, the true revolution in Syria is the gradual change in women's roles in a traditional society. She attended women's governance courses in Turkey organized by Razan, who told her there were no women on the Aleppo local council before the uprising.

 Razan and fellow activists hoped that by encouraging women to work in politics, they would contribute more and have a bigger say in building civil society. Many women made the hazardous trip across the border to join the training sessions.

 “For me, the strongest moment in the filmmaking was ... watching women being trained in the electoral process. The setting was bleak, a typical hotel room, with Disney stickers on the wall, and they used a ‘ballot’ box made from a cardboard box for wine glasses,” said Kalin.'

Three Monsters

 Robin Yassin-Kassab:

 'In the name of disengagement the West not only refused to arm and supply the democratic Syrian opposition – even as Assad launched a genocide against the people – the United States actually prevented other states from providing the heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weaponry the Free Army so desperately needed. It was obvious what would happen next. The Free Army – and the Syrian people – were increasingly squeezed between Assad and the ISIS monster. And now the Americans are bombing both Iraq and Syria. This is where ‘disengagement’ and ‘realism’ has brought us'

John Kerry conceals the reality of the situation in Syria

 Robert Fisk can't seem to make up his mind about the moderate opposition either, to be or not to be?

 'Corrupted, disillusioned, murdered or simply re-defected towards Isis or some other al-Qaeda outfit, the old “Free Syrian Army” is now a myth as ridiculous – and as potent for the Kerrys of this world – as Mussolini’s boast that the Italian army could defeat the British in North Africa. Any Syrian soldier will tell you that they are happy to fight the FSA because these warriors of the “moderate opposition” always run away.'

 But what is this two days later? How do you fund and train a myth? And just as lethal as Assad? Fisk is a liar or a fool, though you can't exclude the combination.

 'Since the US has decided to fund and train the so-called “moderate opposition” to fight Isis and the Syrian regime, why should it not bomb both sets of enemies? And how will Syrians who support whatever is left of these “moderates” react to the American bombs in Idlib which killed their fellow civilians rather than Assad’s forces – bombs, indeed, which appear to have been just as lethal as the munitions dropped on them by Assad’s aircraft?'*
*[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-air-strikes-america-s-attacks-on-isis-may-help-bashar-alassad-keep-his-regime-alive-9751776.html]

President Obama undergoes Damascene conversion

 As if it ever were. There were negotiations over the chemical weapons, and no airstrikes, no attempt at removal.

 Cockburn is just offering smoke and mirrors. There have been a lot of these stories that America is realising they have to work with Assad, and they all seem to emanate from sources that wish it to be true. That the non-arming of the Syrian rebels in 2012 has come back to be an issue this year suggests that a similar failure will not be as easy to get away with. I think the truth is that the priority for the US is to risk as little as possible, and to act in a way that respects the international system of states it sits atop if it can, but that propping up Assad isn't going to help the US, so they are going to make less effort to preserve it, not more.

 'It is evident that Washington is no longer giving priority to removing President Bashar al-Assad from power. This means the US is shifting away from its policy of the past three years when it insisted that no negotiations were possible except about his removal.'

 So do these moderate rebels exist or not?

 'The US is going to train and arm a “third force” of supposedly moderate Syrian rebels in a camp in Saudi Arabia, but past attempts to develop such a force have foundered.'

 I don't know what he's on about in the next sentence.

 'It is in the interests of the US that the “moderate” rebels do not fight each other, a confrontation that would only benefit Isis.'

Nothing will stop Isis except a Syrian truce

 Patrick Cockburn, bullshit merchant. For two years he's been saying that there are no moderate rebels, now they can save Assad. And the US would be able to arrange a ceasefire between Assad and those he is committing genocide against? Patrick Cockburn it is who lives through the looking glass.

 'US policy has an Alice in Wonderland absurdity about it, everything being the opposite of what it appears to be. The so-called “coalition of the willing” is, in practice, very unwilling to fight IS, while those hitherto excluded, such as Iran, the Syrian government, Hezbollah and the PKK, are the ones actually fighting. A truce between the government and moderate rebels in Syria would enable both to devote their resources to fighting IS, as they need to do quickly if they are to avoid defeat.'

How ISIS Hijacked the Syrian Revolution

 ' "The regime is more bloodthirsty than ISIS," she said. "They also commit massacres. They also intrude into daily life."

 And despite the setbacks and violence wrought by the radicals, ISIS "hasn't stopped the revolution," Khuloud said.

 Asked if American military intervention could help her and her colleagues in Syria, she said that air strikes would need to target both ISIS and the regime. She added that she was "very afraid that the American airstrikes could target civilians and civilians will pay the highest price." '

Obama's air strikes in Syria

 'Bashar al-Assad's air war against Syrian civilians continues. Obama doesn't interfere with them, and Assad doesn't try to stop the US air strikes.'

ABC, NBC Ignore Leon Panetta’s Criticism of Obama’s ISIS Strategy

 One of the lies used to promote inaction over Syria is that there has been a propaganda effort by America and its allies to demonise Assad and demand his removal. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 'Rather than cover Panetta’s harsh criticism of President Obama for failing to arm Syrian rebels over a year ago, NBC’s Today spent four minutes interviewing Gwen Stefani to promote the new season of “The Voice.” ABC’s Good Morning America spent more than 5 minutes hyping a new clothing line inspired from the television show “Scandal.” '

How the U.S. fragmented Syria’s rebels

 'A hesitant U.S. role was central to the fragmentation and radicalization of the opposition. Particularly to blame are the combined failures to coordinate the actions of other pro-opposition states, to provide timely financial and military support to the opposition, and to use military support to produce qualitative changes in the opposition’s capabilities vis-à-vis the regime.

 Such a causal story offers a different reading of ISIS’s swift organization of a militarily effective force, its barbaric violence and its consolidation of territory from Syria into northern Iraq. While the rise of ISIS might appear to confirm the worst fears of those who argued that the United States should not support the armed Syrian opposition, in fact it shows the opposite.'

The 'cosmic conspiracy' against the Syrian people

 'Never in the history of the world has the entire world turned a blind eye and protected a tyrant like Bashar Al-Assad, allowing him to become the most expensive tyrant in history in terms of the expense paid by the Syrian people to rid themselves of him; such a cost has never been paid by any other nation in the world.'

Toppling Assad is the only way

 Samar Yazbek:

 In French.

 'The Assad régime's survival and an immoral silence of the world towards its massacres do not mean only descent into a jihadist war, they also ignite the whole region.'



 Note 7/4/25, originally posted 22/9/14, but link from 19/9/24.

Secretary Hagel on U.S. Strategy Against Terrorists

 Someone should tell the Democratic Representative from Santa Ana that most of her people are supporters of Assad, and thus of rape, torture and genocide against the Syrian moderates.

 Loretta Sanchez:

 "I want to begin by saying I have a Syrian/American community and I've -- they're all over the place on this. I go and talk to them. Syrian moderates left? Most of my people say those Syrian moderates have gone over to ISIS, and most of them have told me that they don't think the Syrian moderates we arm, whoever those may be, are actually going to fight against the ISIS moderates who used to hang out with the Syrian moderates."

ISIS, Militarism, and the Violent Imagination

 Richard Falk can't tell the difference between those rebelling against oppression, and the gangs of cut-throats the US has traditionally employed to prevent revolutions.

 'What Obama is proposing to do repeats the old formula of failure: air strikes; training, arming, and advising friendly forces (Iraqi Kurds, moderate Syrians, Iraqi military units), disrupting ISIS overseas recruiting and funding. Obama’s program is a pale version of post-Vietnam counter-insurgency doctrine where risks of American casualties must be minimized while air power, including drones, plus native ground forces with their own political agendas are relied upon to carry out the dirty work.'

 All three negative effects he cites are due to the failure to overthrow Assad, not because the attempt was made.

 'Three negative political effects also followed: neighboring countries were destabilized, the unresolved Syrian struggle gave rise to various forms of Islamic extremism within Syria and in the region, and the atrocities of Assad gave license to others in the region (such as Sisi) to commit crimes against humanity with the prospect of impunity.'

We were like the dead

 "I was working in a field hospital. It happened on the third holiday. The army of Bashar al-Assad
has entered the place, so we fled to Daraija. When the army was withdrawn again, we returned.
The bodies of the men were lying around everywhere. They had cut their necks, just like sheep.
I have seen it with my own eyes. Most were young. Have you ever seen a slaughtered sheep
head? Likewise, I've seen the heads of the men, separated from the body lying on the streets."

McCain right about hole in ISIS plan

 Robert Robb:

 'I usually disagree with John McCain about foreign policy. He is the nation's foremost advocate of a muscular U.S. role in the world. I'm generally skeptical of U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts and disputes.

 However, McCain does have a point, and a very important one, about an incongruity in the announced Obama administration approach to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

 The administration is vague about this, but the clear inference is that the United States plans to assist FSA when it fights ISIS and try to stay out of its fight with Assad.

 This has problems, logically and practically. If the United States is counting on FSA to be the force that ultimately "destroys" ISIS, how can we stand aside while Assad's forces diminish its fighting capability? And if we are providing air support to FSA fighting ISIS in Syria, how can we not provide air cover for it against attacks from Assad's forces?

 McCain's preference, of course, is for the United States to go all in and provide FSA the training, equipment and air support needed to prevail against both ISIS and Assad.'

The U.S. Should Arm The Free Syrian Army

 Obviously the date of 2010 is wrong. Maybe this will provide a new conspiracy theory that the US was funding an insurgency before the Syrian revolution began. The understanding of the balance of forces is right.

 'The Free Syrian Army is not perfect, but we should’ve armed them back in 2010 when they first began to ask for it. Secretary Panetta, Secretary Clinton, General Dempsey and General Petraeus all asked and recommended to the President in the summer of 2012, literally two years ago, that this organization be armed, equipped and trained, and he said no. We’d be much better off in Syria today if we had done such a thing, because it is the only organization that has taken on ISIS.

 The Free Syrian Army knows that both ISIS and the regime are both bad for Syria. This is a secular organization [that] wants to be inclusive with its government, does not want an Islamist state, and wants a democratic form of government.'

Six Steps Short of War to Beat ISIS

 Phyllis Bennis:

 'Arming the so-called “moderate” opposition in Syria doesn’t mean supporting the good guys. It means sending arms to the Free Syrian Army which, according to the New York Times, “went on to behead six ISIS fighters…and then posted the photographs on Facebook.” '

 The New York Times* says so, but the NBC report** does not, and I can't find anyone else who does.

 Clay Claiborne's latest, How a 24hr truce to pick up bodies became a non-aggression pact between ISIS & Syrian rebels,*** is about a similar story "being spread like wildfire by groups that hitherto have shown little concern for the 200,000 Syrians that have died in the last three years as a result of dictator Bashar al-Assad's vicious attempts to cling to power."
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/world/middleeast/american-fighting-for-isis-is-killed-in-syria.html]
**[https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/american-douglas-mcauthur-mccain-dies-fighting-isis-syria-n189081]
***[https://claysbeach.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-24hr-truce-to-pick-up-bodies-became.html]

Obama's air strikes won't deter Islamic State

 "I don't really understand this sudden fuss about Isis. They killed people, but Bashar has been killing for the last three years. But nobody seems to be interested in that anymore."

 "Instead of bombing ISIS from the air, we need support inside Syria to fight. It's the only way. Once Assad is gone, we'll deal with ISIS ourselves."

The Golan Heights May Drag Israel Into the Syrian Civil War

 Assad's never going to win the war, and there still is a Free Syrian Army. An Israeli is quoted as saying the Syrian army has been more dangerous for Israel than the current jihadists, but I don't see any evidence of that, and the article points out that the crossing was peaceful when Assad was in control.

 ' "The Syrian army has two divisions on its side of the Golan—Division 61 south of Kunetra and Division 90 north of Kunetra," says Idan Avni, a correspondent for Israel Radio. "But Assad has more urgent battles, in Aleppo, Damascus, etc. These guys over here haven’t received anything from him in months. No supplies, no arms, nothing. So they defect or surrender to the rebel side, or they simply lay down their arms and go home."

Kunetra and the border areas south of it are controlled by jihadists that are dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra. Further north, more moderate anti-Assad groups, like the Free Syrian Army (FSA), hold territory, as do members of the Druze sect.'

Free Syrian Army: From neglect to resurrection?

 This is why there is a problem with ISIS, not because the Americans created them.

 'The one group that stood out was the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which was created on July 29, 2011, when the peaceful opposition to President Bashar Al Assad became an armed insurgency.

 Washington demurred when Riyadh readied shoulder-fired missiles and anti-tank launchers, and vetoed such transfers. The FSA’s fighting hands were thus tied allegedly because Western powers were not sure if some of these lethal weapons would fall under extremist control. In time, sophisticated American-made anti-tank missiles reached the FSA, though Al Nusra and, more recently, Isis boasted more advanced weapons. Timidity towards the FSA, ostensibly because its leaders maintained correct ties with moderate Islamist factions, translated in an entirely different outlook for Syria.'

The Syrian Holocaust Branch 215

 'Due to the unimaginably -horrible testimonies and pictures sent to us from Branch 215 (Raid Squad), we will try, in this report, to shed light on Branch 215 which alone has more than 7,500 detainees all of whom experience daily the most brutal and horrible torture.'

Robert Fisk on Isis campaign

 Fisk is just talking out of his arse now. Also in CounterPunch along with 'Obama Declares War on Syria'*, which doesn't bear reading either.

 'Then there’s the reinvention of the “moderate” Syrian opposition which was once called the Free Syrian Army – a force of deserters corrupted and betrayed by both the West and its Islamic allies – and which no longer exists. This ghost army is now going to be called the “Syrian National Coalition” and be trained – of all places – in Saudi Arabia, whose citizens have given zillions of dollars to al-Qaeda in Iraq, Isis, Isil, IS (you decide on the acronym), Jabhat al-Nusra and sundry other bad guys whom Obama now wants to “vanquish from the earth”.'
*[http://www.counterpunch.org/…/…/obama-declares-war-on-syria/]