Torture Archipelago

 This is from July 2012, you have to understand that things have got much worse since then.

 ' "The guards hung me by my wrists from the ceiling for eight days. After a few days of hanging, being denied sleep, it felt like my brain stopped working. I was imagining things. My feet got swollen on the third day. I felt pain that I have never felt in my entire life. It was excruciating. I screamed that I needed to go to a hospital, but the guards just laughed at me."

 —Elias describing how he was tortured in Branch 285 of the Department of General Intelligence in Damascus.

 Since the beginning of anti-government protests in March 2011, Syrian authorities have subjected tens of thousands of people to arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment, and torture using an extensive network of detention facilities, an archipelago of torture centers, scattered throughout Syria.'

56% of #ISIS clashes are with Syrian revolutionaries

 '56% of #ISIS clashes are with Syrian revolutionaries, 29% Kurds, only 12% against #Assad. What more needs to be said?'

 Perhaps that 55% of all clashes were between Syrian rebels and the régime, suggests that is the main dynamic, rather than there being at least five different wars as propounded by followers of Patrick Cockburn. And 0% of clashes were between Syrian rebels and Kurds. So why does the world love the latter and disdain the former?

In Darayya, tunnels hide a war playing out underground

 'The regime uses civilians and children to dig tunnels. We know that because a child’s body was found in a regime-made tunnel in Damascus last month.

 The regime forces civilians and children to use primitive equipment to dig the tunnels. In some cases, we discover the tunnels after civilians and detainees flee. Five people escaped through tunnels and they told us about them.'

The sad echo of CIA practices in Syrian regime’s prisons

 There are a number of awful things about the CIA's torture programme. The sheer inhumanity of coercion through pain, the blowback from the outrage it engenders, the way it undermines the universal prohibition against torture, allowing other repressive governments to justify their own brutality. This last isn't helped by all those who will profess outrage at the Americans' actions, but have nothing to say about the systematic terror in Syria, because it's not important, because the main enemy is at home, because it's all just another hoax enabling régime change in the Middle East. Whatever the excuses, when Assad is gone, and the truth is plain to see, there will be a backlash against the Left for failing to show solidarity with the victims, in which the few who have sided consistently with the oppressed will not stop the wave of contempt brought about by those who have ignored Syria, stood on the wrong side, or thought it was just a part-time interest while they got on with their real political concerns.

 'On the same day that the U.S. Senate made available to the public a redacted version of its report on the CIA's program of secret overseas interrogation sites, a Syrian activist group released its own documenting of abuses taking place under the watch of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 The report, compiled by the Syrian Commission for Transitional Justice, a Syrian opposition group based in Istanbul, points to systematic violations of human rights in the Assad regime's jails. According to former U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, the regime has jailed about 50,000 to 100,000 amid Syria's brutal civil war. An untold number have experienced torture and other abuse.'

Syrians Will See CIA Report Proof U.S. And Assad Allies

 'After years of ignoring calls to do more to help the U.S.–backed opposition topple Assad, the Obama administration instead sent warplanes to bomb the extremist militants of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. The regime, meanwhile, has continued using its aircraft to punish rebels and civilians alike.

 The U.S. has denied coordinating with the regime — but Syrians often ask how that can be so as planes from both sides patrol overhead.'

 Once again, 'U.S.-backed' not the most useful phrase.

Syria refugee recalls 'beatings, whippings, electric shocks'

 ' "When things started in Homs," she explained, "they opened fire on peaceful demonstrations. I saw the army, they had their weapons, they opened fire and they forced their way into the areas where we lived with their tanks and machinery. They bombarded our homes and fired on people directly. I saw massacres and I helped save a large number of injured casualties."

 She fled the city but was eventually picked up by the regime's security police.

 "I was subjected to torture, atrocities, insults… They were focusing on the psychological element - insults, humiliation - as a punishment because of what I had done."

 But the scale of her treatment, she says, went much further.

 "I was subjected to beatings, whippings, electric shocks. I was detained in a single cell, it was a horrible place under the ground. There were three floors - and I was kept there for one and half months." '

Southern rebels see US as key to success

 'So the southern front is even more crucial for any short-term Western strategy in Syria.'

 Why is this about Western strategy? Isn't the important thing whether it is crucial for Syrians' chances of success? Making this all about what the US wants, rather than what Syrians want, is one way that the mainstream media has marginalised and rendered invisible the Syrian opposition, while Assad, with his foreign support and foreign proxy armies, is presented as indigenous.

Moscow turns its attention to Damascus

 'Moscow is taking advantage of the United States’ weakness in terms of Syria and the Obama administration’s generally confused politics, the writer observed. The Syrian opposition’s lack of organisation also presents Russia with an opportunity for manipulation.

 “What’s threatening in this scenario is that Moscow’s actions and plans don’t take into consideration the interests of the Syrian people, nor do they serve Syria’s future,” the writer observed.

 “These actions are based on careful strategic planning that guarantees Russia’s continued presence in the Mediterranean and keeps Syria under its control lest it becomes a passageway for Gulf gas and oil pipelines to Europe.” '

No one safe in Syria's sniper war

 'A report released by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) in October 2014 entitled "hunting humans", said that 5,307 civilians had been killed by snipers belonging to the Syrian regime and its allied militias during the conflict.

 In Deir Ezzor, a sniper based atop a police station shot at locals as they crossed a nearby bridge.

 "We would only ever cross at night. We covered our car in sand and turned off the lights. We would drive as fast as possible, knowing we could die," said Aboud Saleh, an activist from the town.

 "Once a family tried to cross. A sniper killed the father, then the mother, then the three children. The Free Syrian Army later took control of the area, and took their revenge [on the shooter]." '

A death to shame all of Europe

 'They had waited for three years, almost all of Reemi's life, to be rescued from a government that had cut off the gas, water and electricity, and was daily lighting the Syrian sky with bombs that would fall on anyone who lived in areas that no longer supported it.

 They had waited for the international community to declare a no-fly zone, but it did not come. They waited for the west to arm the opposition, but that did not happen. They were forced to eat grass and stray cats as they faced starvation. They waited for aid, and it did not come. They waited until all their hope was gone and all they had was a boat ride to anywhere in Europe.

 There was no hope left in Syria. In many parts like Homs, and Aleppo, there was no one left to hope. Some 500,000 civilians had been injured and 200,000 killed by the government for daring to wish for freedom.

 And so, Reemi and her mother prepared for the boat to freedom.'

Familiarize Yourself With The Branches Of "Air Force Intelligence"

 'I did not want to give them what they wanted at the first [finger]nail, but after being tortured and hanged from the ceiling, the investigator said, "I will send you to the head of Airforce Intelligence." '

 Not actually too graphic. Someone who thinks of themselves as a supporter of the Syrian revolution said to me the other day, "Assad is no worse than other dictators." Something no Syrian would say; noone who has been following the suffering in Syria would say, "Could be worse." But I didn't bother to argue the point, because it is usual in such cases for the other party to get offended, and to assume that you are arguing that Syria is so exceptional, there is nothing that could be done that would be worse. So I must be in favour of an American invasion, because thinking something has to be done must mean that anything is better than nothing. Never mind that an American invasion was never going to happen and was a red herring conjured by those who wanted nothing to be done about Assad. I used to find such illogic annoying when it was pointed at Communists, with the claim that if you think the ends justify the means, you must think any means is a good one, even those that lead directly away from the liberty you seek.

 If Assad could ever win, it would not be tens of thousands who would be tortured and killed, but hundreds of thousands. It isn't just that he and his Russian and Iranian backers are war criminals on a grand scale, but that those who support them, even sideways by proclaiming their love of Hezbollah, are scum too, and utterly beyond the pale for anyone who wants to see a better world.

 Assad can't win though, because there are so many Syrians who have gone too far for liberty ever to countenance the torture of living under him again. That is why the death throes of his régime is so destabilising, they have cast millions of refugees into neighbouring countries, forced Assad to drag other countries into the conflict. Maybe sometime the voices calling for the rebels to be armed and the rightness of such a course will force the Americans to allow it to happen, because that is the only way Syria can escape from an ever deepening catastrophe. People who agree with that may disagree with details, but I'm glad they are all in the same camp.

'I want to go home'

 "I made you a drawing of how when we were home we were attacked in an air strike."

Also here.
[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/8/letter-exchange-brings-hope-to-students-near-far/]

No Moral Nation Can Ally With Assad

 'Caught between the twin perils of IS and Assad, and denied all but the most vacillatory international support, rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army have suffered. Of course they have; and so have the Syrian people.

 Assad's forces have committed atrocities, both with and without the aid of weapons of mass destruction. More than 11,000 people have been tortured to death in regime prisons, according to the Senate testimony of a Syrian defector. And the state is poised, it seems, to inflict the same grisly fate on many more. This particular fact becomes tired in reiteration - but not less true.

 It is also true that international inaction - be it in failing to intervene in the aftermath of chemical war crimes, insufficiently equipping moderate rebel groups to fight against trained soldiers from Assad's army and that of Iran, and not providing the sort of diplomatic recognition that could have put pressure on an embattled tyrant - has helped to create the current terrible situation.

 But being complicit in the creation of a scenario in which the theocrat and the fascist can thrive should not mean embracing that most terrible of eventualities. On the contrary, it only doubles the moral obligation of those who - for whatever reason - allowed Assad and IS to ascend to their duel positions of power; rather than shrinking away from confronting this evil, we must fight it - and in any form it may take.'

Beware Of The Leopard

 'President Barack Obama is exploring ways to clarify his Syria policy, senior administration officials said, including how to reconcile his opposition to both the Assad regime and the Sunni militants that are its chief foe.

 The discussions are taking place amid growing pressure from U.S. allies in the Middle East for the administration to more pointedly confront the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Another prompt is Senate confirmation hearings for Mr. Obama’s pick to lead the Defense Department, Ashton Carter, who...'

Israel 'cooperating with Assad' in Golan Heights

 ' "It's in the Israeli interests that Assad control the Quneitra Gate again," said Kobi Marom a reserve in the Israel army and research associate at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya. "If you look at the polls today, Israelis prefer Assad when you see the threat of the Islamic radical groups."

 Israel has hinted it is coordinating directly with Assad's forces but has avoided saying it outright. Marom suggested Israel had been working with the Syrian regime to coordinate air strikes on Quneitra.'

Life in the besieged Syrian town of Kobani

 'Abu Layla, commander of a Free Syrian Army-linked group in Kobani called Shams al-Shamal (Sun of the North) Brigade, said he is proud of what the FSA and the Kurdish fighters have achieved together in Kobani so far. Their alliance is called "Burkan al-Furat," Arabic for Volcano of the Euphrates. Abu Layla's group has over a hundred fighters, mostly ethnic Arabs and Turkmens from his hometown of Minbej.

 He said he is not fighting for the Kurds, Arabs or Turkmens, or for Christians or Muslims.

 "I'm fighting for a free democratic Syria, not an Islamic Syria but a free democratic Syria," he said. He has not lost sight of the real goal of the rebels, toppling President Bashar Assad. But he says the priority now is to get rid of the Islamic State group.

 After that, taking down Assad "will be easy for us, if we have support." '

“I will sustain (Free Syria) Movement”

 "Sometime in March 2011, I remember walking into my home and looking at the TV and seeing videos of children that were tortured by the Syrian regime. Their nails had been pulled out, one of them was skinned and killed and his body returned to his family. I was shocked that this was happening to children on the same planet that I live on, and let alone Syria, where I was born. It happened to them only because they wrote on their school walls that they wanted to topple the regime. That’s when I decided that I needed to do something."

‘Police betrayed me,’ says mother of British jihadi

 “It was the pictures everywhere, on Sky News that he was watching, of people being raped and children being killed, which inspired him to go,” said Mrs Sarwar. “These images were everywhere. He went to Syria to help the Free Syrian Army.

 When the Queen’s son went to Afghanistan to fight he was patted on the back. Our sons are going out for a cause that the British government also supports, they support the rebels fighting in Syria, he is sent to jail for 12 years.”

 Not a cause really supported by the British government.

Ex-PM Barak lambasts anti-ISIS alliance

 “Assad massacred almost 200,000 of his own people, using every method including chemical weapons. This was not enough to move British Prime Minister Cameron or the American Congress and President Obama. Then, along came the Islamic State and beheaded two journalists, a practice not all that new in the Middle East, but doing so in front of cameras. Within 28 hours the whole world was mobilized against them.

 Let’s assume that ISIS is restrained within a year. So who really wins? The main winner will be Assad, as well as Iran and Hezbollah, in other words President Bush’s axis of evil. The coalition is doing some of their dirty work for them.”

Iran's Military Mastermind Is 'The Leader Of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, And Yemen'

 'The Obama administration, while denying any coordination, does not seem to mind Iran's empowerment as the two countries negotiate a potential nuclear deal that Obama hopes will rebalance the region for the better. The consequences of the Iran-backed agenda are becoming increasingly clear, however, as the regime of Bashar Assad continues to rain barrel bombs on civilians, Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate routs US-backed rebels, Tehran sends more fighters to bolster Assad, Iraqi Shia militias torch Sunni villages in Iraq, and ISIS runs a self-declared caliphate across both Iraq and Syria.'

 Not greatly US-backed, or they wouldn't have been routed.

Obama's reward system becoming increasingly innovative

 'Use chemical weapons and get US air support.'

 ISIS have nearly overrun Assad's airbase at Deir Ezzor. He has responded with chlorine bombs, while the US also bomb ISIS in the area.

A Last Gasp Warning for U.S. Influence

 'Without question, ISIS is a threat to regional and international security, but so too is a failed state with over 100,000 frustrated armed insurgents. For all Syrian rebels — encompassing U.S.-backed FSA groups to the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham — ISIS is a menace, but the regime is the enemy. Fighting the latter is seen as a way to defeat the former, but not vice-versa. Fighting ISIS and ignoring the regime is simply not an option.

 Syria's armed opposition is now determined to go it alone. As one U.S.-backed leader told me, "there's simply no trust [in the U.S.] left, we'll do whatever we need to do for the revolution and our people. For three years we pleaded for American help — one day, they might regret not having given it more honestly." '

A safe zone in Syria would be a forward step

 'The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been pressing for a more ambitious strategy, including a no-fly zone that would extend to Aleppo. That would be a much heavier blow to the Assad regime; it would entrench the moderate opposition in the country’s second-largest city and could force the serious negotiations about a post-Assad government that the Obama administration says it seeks.'

Palestinians in Syria struggle for bread and agency

 'In July 2013, the regime hermetically sealed off the camp, on which a relentless siege was imposed. Under the pretext of forcing enemy fighters out, the population was surrounded. People were left without food or medicine, and for weeks without drinking water. Dozens of people have died from the effects of the siege, mostly children, women and the elderly. It is only the regime that imposes and maintains the embargo. It is the regime alone that bears responsibility for the deaths that have resulted from it.'

A&E In The War Zone

 In case you hadn't noticed, Assad bombs all the hospitals.

 Rola Alkurdi Hallam:

 "A British surgeon friend of mine just back from 6 weeks in Aleppo. He's a bit traumatized from the horrors. For those of you in uk, a documentary about his trip will be showing on Wednesday, late in the eve apparently because of how graphic and distressing it is!!! Whilst I understand that, it also really frustrates me because the horrors will still not be seen by many."

Syrians watch their revolution, dismayed but unbowed

 These revolutionary Syrians are invisible to much of the Left.

 ' “The Syrian revolution is one of the greatest revolutions in all of history,” says Mohammed, Yusuf’s twin. “We paid a lot, we paid blood, we paid a whole generation, and at the end, the right will have the victory. Because this revolution [was fought] against injustice, corruption, and dictatorship.”

 Mr. Khalil, like many Syrians, is deeply frustrated with President Barack Obama’s failure to take decisive action in Syria as some members of Congress have advocated, at one point kissing his fingers and shouting, “I love you John McCain!”

 “Obama always said, ‘If Assad does this, this is a red line.’ I’m trying to invent a new color for Obama, because red is not enough for him,” he says, criticizing the limited airstrikes on IS as ineffective and tangential to what he sees as the real need: removing President Assad. “If you have a disease or a pain in your head, should I come and treat your arm?” '

Syrian Aid Cuts 'Amount to Execution Order'

 Still I imagine there are left-wing idiots who think this is because Obama is too busy arming jihadists, when the reality is that the abandonment of refugees is part and parcel of the abandonment of Syria to Assad's genocide.

The road to death in Ghouta begins with a wood-gathering trip

 'Ali, an FSA fighter stationed in Jobar, talked about the double suffering he faces; fighting off regime’s struggle to advance in the neighbourhood and providing the necessities of daily life. In an interview with the Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office correspondent, he said, “I stay at the neighbourhood for two days and during my free time I gather as much firewood as I can, then I have to walk for five kilometres back home; my brothers would be waiting for the firewood.”

 Almost everywhere in eastern Ghouta, you could see children searching for food to survive. Although the people here have experienced the worst living conditions and have been forgotten by the whole world, they are still living with dignity and refusing to kneel down for the Assad regime.'

Jogging through a war zone

 “We are showing the world that we are playing sports in the most dangerous city in the world … It’s also to relieve people from the stress of the continuous strikes and crimes committed by the regime and to showcase our talented athletes who partake in such events.”

The Obama Administration Has Assad Amnesia

 'Assad would have been the invisible man in Brussels had Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu not insisted on bringing him up. The minister called for a comprehensive strategy in the region and warned that unless the anti-ISIS coalition broadens its campaign to tackle the Assad regime in addition to the jihadists there will be no peace, the conflict will continue, and the militants can exploit that for their own ends.

 Now that their country is in its fourth year of bloody civil war, and after at least 200,000 deaths, infuriated Syrian rebels fear a behind-the-scenes bargain with the Devil is in the works, one permitting Assad to get away with murder and remain in power.

 They say the West is displaying an indifference to their struggle and the latest peace plans being pushed by the UN, NGOs and Moscow don’t reassure them. All three envisage Assad staying in power—at least in the short term.'

Word in the White House: “de-escalation”

 'The word in the White House is “de-escalation.” This means that instead of working with allies to extend protection to Syrian civilians and to constrain Assad’s killing machine, the White House is more concerned with publicly signaling that its priority is to avoid any clash with Assad.'

Radio-Free Syria

 ' “Whenever we get rid of the regime, it’s going to be easy to get rid of ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Nusra Front,” he said. The jihadis justified their presence by saying to the local people, “We’re here to help you topple the regime.” Once the regime was gone, he said, people would see the foreign fighters for what they were: carpetbaggers.'

Three lessons learned from the Syrian conflict

 ' "Assad or else we burn the country." Huge swaths of Aleppo were leveled and depopulated as Assad's air force dropped more bombs on the city than it had in all of Syria's wars against Israel. Other parts of Syria that the regime's militias could not re-conquer, such as Raqqa in the east, were allowed to fall into the hands of the terror group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

 That is what passed for a "political program" on the part of the regime. In almost four years of war, it has not been able to implement even the tiniest political, economic or social reform in either civil society or the armed forces. It has no political vision to offer its supporters other than to exploit the terrifying vision of a rampant ISIS and other less well-defined "threats" and conspiracies.

 The Syrian opposition may have gotten numerous proclamations of "friendship," but except in a very few cases, they were very shallow and superficial friendships indeed. Meantime, money, arms and mercenaries poured in from Iran, Russia, the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and assorted sectarian "soldiers of fortune" from Iraq to Afghanistan, all with the sole aim of sustaining a regime that would otherwise have collapsed.'

Palestinian Refuge for 6 Decades, Now Flooded From Syria

 I saw some shitty British Hezbollah fan [Kevin Ovenden] the other day eulogise the unity of a Beirut conference on fighting Israel, and call for support for the revolutionary forces in the region. But there is no support for those made to suffer by Assad, Hezbollah is murdering in Syria, and making refugee lives miserable in Lebanon. A nation that oppresses another will never itself be free.

 'One young Palestinian, Ayman Saed, fled Syria after being detained for eight months. His crime: trying to escape the government cordon around Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, ruled and fought over by insurgents, starved and bombarded by the security forces. Amjad Hariri, 31, a Syrian from the southern city of Dara’a, said he lost two brothers, shot as they tried to flee security forces early in the uprising that began with protests in 2011. 

 Soon after, his sister Majdaleen, 14, was shot in the face by a sniper as she walked to a government office.

 When Syrian insurgents periodically claim responsibility for attacks on Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia allied with the Syrian government, angry men come to “take revenge” on Syrians, he said.'

Syria "systematically" using chemical weapons

 'The regime used chemical weapons in attacks against opposition-controlled towns in northern Syria during April and May of this year and again in August and September. Eyewitness reports of regime helicopters indicate that the Syrian government carried these attacks out.'

The German Left’s Palestine Problem

 Sam Charles Hamad:

 "Yeah, does anybody want to talk about 'Die Linke's' Syrian problem? Namely, that they uncritically and unashamedly support the Assad regime in all its brutal endeavours against, most ironically, both Syrians and Palestinians? No, 'Jacobin' certainly wouldn't want to talk about it. The reason I bring it up is because it completely renders any support that 'Die Linke' might have for the Palestinians as meaningless, while it also reminds us that this kind of left is part of the same political logic as the right, or, in this case, Die Linke's support for Assad (remember the petition they authored calling on solidarity with the Assad regime in 2012, just as the slaughter was reaching mechanical, methodical levels?) is just as bad as some of the German left's support for Israel. Fuck them both, I say."

The Pat on the Back award

 'The Pat on the Back award went to journalist Robert Fisk for his articles on Isis and Syria, who the campaign said "helped make some kind of clear sense of what was and is largely senseless, and, unlike some of his peers, never overplays his own part in what's unfolding".'

A heinous crime inside Intelligence Branch 215

 'The Syrian Association confirmed that the Assad regime's military intelligence executed 131 detainees inside Branch 215, known as the Raid Brigade in Damascus, after they were infected with the pneumonic plague due to poor health conditions.'

 In Auschwitz, many of the survivors only outlasted the Nazis because they'd been in the hospital .ward with scarlet fever.

The West is to blame for Syrian conflict

 What a messed up world it is when many on the left claim it is the Saudi and Western funding of jihadists that has created the catastrophe in Syria, and it is down to the former intelligence chief of one of the most reactionary governments in the world to point out the truth.

 'The US and western Europe failed to act on Saudi recommendations in 2012 to arm the moderate Syrian rebels against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, he pointed out. “If that had been done, then there would have been no need to use our air force now. The difference between the good guys and the bad guys in the opposition was clear cut then. It was the dilly-dallying at the time that gave Jabhat al-Nusra [branch of] al-Qaeda [its] chance. Because of the time lost it has, of course, become much more difficult now between the good guys and the bad guys.” '

Obama gives Assad’s air force a free pass for slaughter

 I don't think appeasement is the best term here, it is not as if Iran threatens the world the way Nazi Germany did, but the point that Obama is giving Assad a free pass is well made, much preferable to the garbage that the death in Syria is down to an American intervention against Assad and Iran.

 Talking of actual Nazis, "In the 1950s Alois Brunner, one of the world's most wanted German Nazi war criminals, is believed to have fled to Syria. He reportedly later served as an adviser to President Hafez al-Assad and is thought to have instructed his government on torture tactics."
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30275358]

The Corrosive Split that Sidelined Hagel

 'Moderates, betrayed by the promise of well-crafted support for their anti-Assad campaign, have vowed to singularly fight the regime while responding to the jihadist onslaught. Jihadists, united against the US air campaign, attack its closest allies on the ground, determined to defeat the remnants of the remaining mainstream opposition. Meanwhile, Washington avoids meaningful conversation on its ineffective strategy as the mainstream opposition suffers the brunt of dual assault by jihadists and Assad’s regime. A responsible Syria strategy requires that President Obama turn the coercive threat of military action to its rightful client: Assad. The president’s tolerance to Assad’s unchallenged assault on the opposition sidelines the administration’s partners whose legitimate claims over the restoration of peace and dignity to the Syrian people deserves aggressive support.'

Hezbollah’s Syria Problem

 'While Hezbollah wants to maintain its credentials as an anti-Israel fighting force, it can't afford a full-scale battle with the Jewish state in Southern Lebanon while committed to fighting Sunnis in Syria and increasingly forced to do the same at home in Lebanon. Nor does it want to take the chance of inviting the Israeli air force to respond in Syria, where Israeli airstrikes could severely damage Hezbollah and other forces loyal to the Assad regime.'

‘Hell is never far away’

 Usual number of arseholes in the comments blaming this on Western intervention.

 'Barrel bombs, the Syrian war’s most savage weapon, are also its most indiscriminate killer.
Slowly, methodically, they have tipped the tide in the favour of the regime, which continues to edge around Aleppo’s north-eastern flank as its bombs erode the city of civilians, fighters, and hope.

 Rebel fighters who work alongside Umm Abdu in the city say the fighter-cum-medic is unique. “No one else risks her own life as much,” says a local leader, Abu Juud, who helps provide food for her family. “And no one else saves as many other lives.” '

No Agreement Reached on Syrian No-Fly Zone

 'Obstacles remain to the United States’ committing to what would be a significant increase in American military engagement in the area.'

 The different interests of the US administration from those of the Syrian people make it difficult to trust any intervention of the former that is claimed to benefit the latter, but the talk of 'obstacles' and 'significant increase' is very much the language of those who at best, are more afraid of Islamists coming to power in Syria than they care about the destruction wrought by Assad and ISIS.

 Announce a no-fly zone, and Assad's airforce, only good and bombing children and pensioners, would shit in their pants. There was a programme about Cybercrime the other day, where Ben Hammersley* said that when the Israelis bombed Syrian nuclear facilities a few years ago, they disabled the entire Syrian air defence system. They didn't seem to worry that that might put them in more direct conflict with Mr. Assad. As indeed they have stayed out of Syria, while their supposed enemy Hezbollah has murdered for Assad with abandon.

 The Turks have their own reasons for wanting to help, but the disaster that the death agony of the Assad dynasty has wrought on them means they do want to help.

*[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04tr8l9]

What on earth is Nick Griffin doing in Syria?

 One might say much the same about Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, the Independent's conduits for stories from Damascus. Press TV reports some attendees from a US organisation called Veterans Today.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141203221618/http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/01/388246/counterterrorism-conference-in-syria/]

Secret British role in halting Isil 'massacre' in Lebanon

 ZOMG, Britain intervenes on the side of Hezbollah. Before anyone tells me ever again that arming the FSA is a problem because it is an intervention with results we know not, deal with the reality, everyone is intervening, only none of them on the side of saving the Syrian people from the ongoing catastrophe that is Assad remaining in power, and his victims driven into the arms of ISIS by the world allying with their enemies.



 Not much illumination from the New York Times:

 'But here in Ras Baalbek, at least, the encroaching conflict has forged a new, provisional unity. Even longtime critics of Hezbollah grudgingly welcome its presence as a bulwark between them and the Syrian and foreign Sunni militants in the highlands, although some blame Hezbollah for inflaming the threat.'
[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/world/clashes-on-syrian-border-split-lebanese-town.html]

We Leave, They Stay

 'So these boys have never met Lina nor have they heard of her. Still, they find comfort in the dream, and begin to draw. All but one.

 "Omar, refused to draw," Lina says, recalling that day. "He said his old home is gone. And his new home is no home at all. He was completely despondent. I spent some time talking to him, trying to give him hope, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get him to draw."

 Lina's voice falls with sorrow. "Finally he told me all he wants is to grow up so he can go and die in the revolution." '

Armed opposition groups announce new alliance

 'Aloush, who is a senior member of Jaysh Al-Islam, said his group was ready to fight alongside minority groups in a united front against the Assad regime. “If any Christian or other fighting groups were formed on the ground, they would be able to join the Command Council,” he said, adding that “all these groups are equal in front of the law, and their rights will not be trampled upon.” '

Agree to disagree on Syria

 This is more positive.

 ' “We have to stand up a viable ground force in Syria to be able to do that. That’s not the regime. It’s got to be the moderate Syrian opposition. And we need to facilitate a political transition. I think where we still need to get across the goal line in terms of our agreement is how our military-to-military cooperation is going to be synced up in those areas. But that’s not disagreement. I just think that – now that I think we are in a good place about what we’re trying to accomplish, we need to figure out what’s the best way for our militaries to work together to make that happen.”

 According to sources close to the meeting, Biden and Davutoğlu have agreed on the prospects of taking al-Assad out of the political equilibrium. But Turkey’s urgency creates jitters in Washington. The nuclear deal with Iran seems more important and the Obama Administration would do very little to shake the boat for at least several months.

 As Iran gets closer to the international scene as a major player, there will be little relevance of al-Assad anymore. Iran may not need him, Russia may not need him.'

David Cameron urges EU support for migration plans

 "We have offered sanctuary."

 To ninety Syrians. When the refugees are in their millions. As some Syrian pointed out on Facebook yesterday, more than that would have arrived if the British government had not slapped on visa restrictions to stop Syrians escape from Bashar al-Assad, his Russian weapons and his Lebanese and Iranian mercernaries. Arming the FSA with anti-aircraft weapons would have reduced the flood to a trickle, we wouldn't have the chaos with ISIS running rampant if that had been done, and it is still the only way out of hell on Earth for Syria. Every day that goes by and the Syrian people are not allowed to defend themselves and the disaster gets worse.

 There are some other reasons why Cameron's talking shit, but this is the most important right now, not to be discovered by those who go along with the idea that if we allowed our governments to help the Free Syrian Army, or anyone else who wants to fight Assad (and ISIS, but let's understand how the tolerance of one fuelled the other), they would just be creating blowback of mad jihadis ready to come back to Britain and blow us all up in our beds. Get real.

Hagel-ian dialectic

 'If there is no alternative to ISIS’ fighters, they will continue to be able to command unwarranted and unearned support from angry and desperate Sunni communities that have faced a regime that has had no compunction in using all forms of conventional firepower, as well as chemical weapons, to dispense with at least 200,000 of its own citizens in the past three years.

 And if those same communities conclude that the anti-ISIS coalition effort either wittingly or unwittingly benefits that regime, rather than stands as a new challenge against it, there is no way for them to embrace the effort. To the contrary, as Obama himself recently noted, such an impression would serve to drive Sunni Arabs in Syria toward ISIS, however reluctantly, and away from any support for the coalition's efforts.

 ...the fundamental contradiction that Hagel has identified — that the battle against ISIS cannot be won as long as US policy towards Assad remains ambiguous and ambivalent — remains unavoidable.

 As I've written many times in the past, the inescapable bottom line is that the administration will ultimately have to choose between presiding over a campaign against ISIS that achieves much less than the stated "degrade and ultimately destroy" goal, or finally biting the bullet and making regime change in Syria an inextricable part of the American project. Getting rid of people who irksomely point this out isn't going to alter an equation, like this one, that is hardwired into the reality of the problem.'

Assad brings down Chuck Hagel

 You have to subscribe to see content, but here's the whole thing:

 'US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel’s resigned on November 24 against a backdrop of profound disagreement with the White House and Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over US strategy against Islamic State (IS) also known as ISIS or Daesh. Hagel was in favour of air strikes against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, to destroy Daesh’s principal recruiting ground and legitimacy.

 For several weeks Hagel had also pleaded for drastic reinforcements for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in accordance with the analysis of Saudi Arabia’s GID and Turkey’s MIT (IOL 722). Sources who accompanied Mutaib bin Abdullah, the head of Saudi Arabia’s National Guard, to Washington last week say that a disillusioned Hagel complained that the US Air Force had become Assad’s proxy. His departure marks the victory of Dempsey’s strategy. The US military chief is in favour or rehabilitating the Damascus regime as the last rampart in the region against jihadism.'

The big picture in Syria is bigger than any one group

 'In light of these developments, do you not think that ISIS and the PYD are taking advantage of the situation and are just focusing on their own political interests while the Assad regime is still standing and fuelling the inhuman internal conflict. The preceding statement might be harsh from the Kurdish perspective since they have been oppressed for longer than a century - but what about the Sunni majority and their historical memory of Assad's killings? Therefore, opposition groups leaving ideological obsessions aside and concentrating on their common enemies - ISIS and Assad - seems to be the path to take.'

Children's toys scattered among human flesh in Raqqa

 'After the regime massacred nearly 100 people.'

 The US State Department had the following to say:

 "Government in ‪#‎Syria‬ has launched airstrikes designed to hit ‪#‎ISIS‬ in‪#‎Raqqa‬; civilians caught in the crossfire."*

 If they hadn't been Arab children, would this have gone down exactly the same way?

*[https://twitter.com/StateCSO/status/537384003624787968]



 Note 11/4/25, State Department tweet deleted.

Syria’s southern rebels draw up new game plan

 What the article makes clear is that the West and the Gulf countries have not been backing the rebels in the sense that they want them to succeed, but because to do nothing would be considered an outrage by their own people. The idea that the rebels were proxy forces that would carry out some unidentified policy of their masters rather than the revolution against Assad was always impossible to take seriously, all that could be done was neuter them by promising support and not delivering. That is still the threat, that the US will use the threat of the rebels to negotiate a transition that maintains Russian and Iranian domination of Syria without Assad, and sell out Syria permanently if they can get a deal.

 'In contrast to the north and east, where Syria shares frontiers with Turkey and Iraq, the southern border with Jordan has been relatively well policed, preventing the kind of influx of foreign extremists that have aided the rise of ISIL and Al Nusra.

 That had made the southern front the best hope for the West and Gulf States, and the moderate rebel groups they are backing, to bring pressure to bear on Iranian reinforced, Russian supplied regime forces in and around the capital, Damascus.'

A Syrian Activist Plans To Behead An ISIS Fighter

 “I feel that the world will forget us and forget what we stood for.”

Millions in Aleppo under threat of siege

 ' “People have grown accustomed to the barrel bombs; we are nearing a year of this regular bombardment,” said Hamdi, referring to the near-daily government airstrikes using a particularly indiscriminate weapon. “But people fear the thought of siege, the thought of hunger, the thought of being cold - this is what people fear the most.”

 For more than two years, the government has employed siege tactics - what the opposition calls “kneel or starve” - to retake or pacify areas it was unable to seize militarily.

 Earlier this year, the government reached truces with opposition-held communities around Damascus, the capital, and in Homs, Syria’s central city, once called “the capital of the revolution,” which had been under siege for months. Before the deals were made, some residents had died for lack of food or medicine, local activists reported.

 The cease-fire agreements were seen as a blow to the rebels and a victory for President Bashar Al Assad in that they pacified individuals and groups who had called for his ouster. Whereas the government portrayed the deals as part of a broader effort at national reconciliation, the opposition viewed them as an effort to undermine its support among the population.'

 Nice rainbow on Friday.