We Rattled Too Many Cages

 "In the book you talk about how Assad's forces knew they were shelling a media center. Why do you think he was targeting journalists?"

 "The night before Marie and Remi’s murder, Marie had given three interviews, to CNN, C4 in the UK, and the BBC World Service. The next morning I could clearly define the firing pattern of the regime gunners. They were bracketing in on us, which is adjusting fire with the use of a drone, until they had precisely targeted the building. They then fired four rockets directly into the media center.

 Why? What was happening in Baba Amr was wholesale slaughter, Marie had the audacity to report live from the scene. We had witnessed the butchery and that crossed the boundaries as to what the regime would tolerate. We rattled too many cages in Damascus."

 "Russian President Vladimir Putin said that perhaps it was the rebels who staged a chemical weapons attack. What do you think of that?"

 "The polite answer to that is ‘complete rubbish,’ my heartfelt answer is, ‘utter bollocks.’ I spent time with these people; they are fighting for their lives, for survival. They showed Marie and I warmth that went beyond the need to get western journalists in and out of the country. People died on our behalf, they died in an effort to show the world the horrors of what was happening to their own people and families. The concept that they gassed their own families to garner Western support is an anathema to me."

Syrian rebels to receive US training to fight Assad

 'The senior FSA official praised Washington’s “response” to the FSA’s calls to amend the military plan and allow the FSA to target not just ISIS, but also Assad regime forces. “This is something that we insisted on.” '

 If you are abandoned by the world, especially when you are derided as the problem and any aid you receive seen as the problem, it's a good idea to be extra grateful for any actual help. But you can see clearly from this that getting rid of Assad has never been part of America's plan. It's not surprising that the US is happy to see dictators remain in power, the question is why the rest of the world has refused to help Syria, to stop the carnage, the destabilisation of the region and the rise of ISIS that have resulted from letting Assad get away with murder.

 There's a report that 3000 rebels in the Qalamoun have allied with ISIS*, because they receive no support, and the alternative is giving in to Assad and the sectarian foreign legion that is Hezbollah. People have been forced to such desperate choices when they are given no alternative. It isn't the safe option to say nothing can be done to help, that's how it's got as bad as it is.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20150401000000*/http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/3000-fsa-fighters-defect-isis-qalamoun-mountains/]

 Note 23/02/15: I've now seen that Al-Masdar News is an untrustworthy pro-Assad source.

The Gutman Report

 If Syrians were merely fighting a dictator, as the Nicaraguans with Somoza, or fighting a foreign invasion, like the Vietnamese with the Americans, for the rest of the world not to offer solidarity would be a simple abandonment of principle. But when they are doing both of those, and in addition are the frontline against a terrorist threat we all say we would like dealt with, the abandonment is criminal.

 'Gutman reported being told by Syrian opposition leaders of being ignored by the Obama administration last April when they warned of a major ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) offensive brewing. The alleged warning centered on Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria rather than on Iraq; still, nationalist opposition requests for more material to fight ISIL were reportedly ignored. According to Gutman, “Moderate rebels, despite their battlefield setbacks, have unique assets, such as ground-level intelligence about the locations and movements of the Islamic State, a grasp of local politics and the drive to expel foreign-led forces from their country. But they’ve failed to gain traction with the Obama administration for their plans to fight the terror groups, and recently they’ve had trouble even getting a hearing.”

 It is not too late for American policy to change fundamentally, especially given the requirement that ISIL be beaten in Syria—not just Iraq. But the administration seems single-minded in its pursuit of a nuclear agreement with Iran—a worthy goal to be sure. Is the goal made more achievable by bowing to Tehran and its client in Damascus? And if it is, who will want to confront the bill—particularly the itemization of children slaughtered and innocent lives brought to ruin? Perhaps this too can be blamed on those who had the temerity to risk all for civilized governance in Syria.'

Syrians prepare for 200th Friday anti-regime protest

 'One researcher and activist involved with the Syria conflict goes by the name of Not George Sabra, and his blog “Democratic Revolution, Syria Style” compiles a list of the weekly demo slogans. He believes that the slogans still function as a way to identify the main groups in the Syria conflict.

 “They’re not really ideological, but represent the broad masses who are friendly to both the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front [militias], but are hostile to Assad and ISIS.” '

Yassin H Saleh: Palestinization of Syrians

 'A radical solution to the problem of the Syrian refugees requires standing in solidarity with them as they work to reclaim their country, instead of acting as if Syrians fled their country as a result of a natural disaster. It requires understanding that the entity who Palestinianized Syrians is, mainly, the local Israel - the Assad state.

 Aspects of the Israelization of this “state” are many. It has a complete monopoly over the air force. It has been protected from condemnation by four Russian-Chinese vetoes in the Security Council, just as the United States has done to protect aggressive Israel. It has categorically refused to recognize the opposition as negotiation partners and has expressed no interest in negotiating with them. It has developed a ‘modernizing’ ideology complete with an array of symbols that conceal basic matters of justice and political equality. It dehumanizes Syrian protestors and resisters and accuses them of being terrorists, with the tacit cooperation of the international community as marked (for example) by the granting of a UNESCO award to an organization led by Asma’ al Assad, the tyrant’s wife. And the public killer at the head of this state is supported by all the fascists and Stalinists of the free world and is interviewed in its free press!

 The West’s exclusive focus on Dae’sh marks the other side of the dehumanization of Syrians, and reduces their much larger struggle to this single, fascist entity. With this move, the society of Syrians inside and outside the country is completely obscured, and as people, they become invisible. This outcome is not a matter of lack of information or knowledge, it is a matter of politics - a politics of the elite, even though some of them argue that they represent the masses.'

The White House-Kremlin position on Assad

 'What’s curious about these Russian priorities is the extent to which they dovetail with White House talking points — especially post-Geneva II. After that conference went nowhere, the US emphasis shifted to fighting terrorism and a humanitarian cessation of hostilities. A year-end statement posted on the Facebook page of the US Embassy in Damascus perfectly illustrated this shift. The statement defined the US role as leading efforts “to meet humanitarian needs, defeat ISIL, and foster a peaceful resolution to the conflict.” Nothing in there about removing Assad.'

Differences remain between U.S., Turkey on training Syrian opposition

 I suspect the second part is exaggerated, due to the Turkish tendency to vilify the PKK and anyone associated with it, which undermines the important part, that far from being an equal partner in a sectarian proxy war in Syria with Iran and Russia who have invested billions in weaponry and tens of thousands of troops, the West has done as little as it could to help the resistance to Assad.

 There was a claim a few weeks ago that Turkey was entering a new deal with Russia, and was abandoning the desire to be rid of Assad. Like a lot of the conspiracy stories about those with some real claim to be opposed to Assad, it doesn't seem to be the case.

 Elsewhere, Tariq Ali* is telling more lies about Syria. He has his own TV channel now. That's going to be an embarrassment for anyone associated with it some day. The Stop The War Coalition has reposted a piece by John Rees** about the causes of terrorism, which doesn't even bother to mention Syria, and there's a new one by Lindsey German*** recycling the lies about the opposition in Syria, and Western funding thereof, being responsible for ISIS. However muddled the SWP is, these people are a lot worse, whitewashing Assad's crimes only a step away from openly justifying them.

 ' "They (Western powers) say we won't enter in a land war. Then we told them, if you do not enter yourselves, let's support the Free Syrian Army (FSA). They did not support the FSA," he said.

 Erdogan also criticized the U.S. for airlifting weapons to the Kurdish-populated Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, also known as Kobane, near the Turkish border, saying that some of the weapons ended up in the hands of the IS, and others went to the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).'

* "Libe is reporting that two of the three CharlieHebdo suspects who they identify as French brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi from Paris had recently returned from Syria, where they had fought among anti-government rebels. If true this would be part of a pattern. EU intelligence agencies (the French and British hyper-active on this front) are perfectly aware of who is being recruited from within the Muslim communities to fight where. It was the same in Bosnia where one of the LSE students was radicalised and latter assassinated an investigative US journalist in Karachi.

 The French were preparing to back an invasion of Syria and regime change. So it would be useful for critically-minded French and British journalists as to what has been really going on before the emergence of Frankenstein ISIS scared people a bit...Its a murky story and is bound to come out sooner or later..."
[https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=855589144482634&id=100000946684702&pnref=story]
** [https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/what-you-need-to-know-about-terrorism-and-its-causes-a-graphic-account/]
*** "ISIS has received weapons and money from the Saudis and Qataris, has grabbed weapons provided by the west for other anti Assad groups, and has received material support from Turkey."[http://stopwar.org.uk/…/paris-massacre-lessons-that-need-to…]

ISIS and counter-revolution: towards a Marxist analysis

 The only mention of the Free Syrian Army is an unverified, and unverifiable claim, as the footnote link loops back to the article, that they are linking up with ISIS. The SWP seems to get more ignorant about Syria as time goes by.

 'Fighters from the Free Syrian Army and Islamist factions in Syria were reported to be seeking alliances with ISIS in late November as US bombing intensified.'

 More writing off of the actual revolution in Syria from the SWP, leading to the Islamophobic approach of reducing all the forces fighting Assad to puppets of the Gulf states or America, and identifying them with ISIS. And beginning with the claim that Western states are using humanitarian rhetoric to justify an Iraq-style intervention, ignoring the actual humanitarian disaster they are feebly responding to, and largely ignoring when it comes to Assad.

 'The question of sectarianism at a regional level was not of course confined to rhetoric but had by 2012-13 taken the form of interventions by regional powers into the spiralling conflict in Syria, with Sunni Islamist forces armed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States confronting Hizbollah’s Shia Islamists backed by Iran alongside Assad’s troops.'

 I noticed this from 2012 earlier:

 'It may be time to read, even re-read, Edward Said’s Covering Islam. Critical intellectuals did not believe US propaganda about al-Qaida's links to the Iraqi regime prior to the 2003 invasion. Shouldn’t the same criteria be used in the case of Syria? The regime there has also justified its repression of the popular movement from spring 2011 by depicting it as the work of"Salafis" and "foreign agents" funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, Britain and America. A similar scepticism about the Syrian authorities and their claims would be welcome.'

[https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/syria-neo-anti-imperialism-vs-reality/]

Why Assad Still Must Go

 'If most rebels acted out of religious zeal, how did they earn support from members of Syria's minorities? Salamiya, a majority-Ismaili Shite town of105,000, which held its first protests against the Assad regime in April of 2011, has hosted massive anti-regime protests deep into the Revolution's armed phase. The Free Syrian Army head in Salamiya is himself Ismaili. Is he acting out of Ismaili religious zeal? Syrian Christians have also established multiple anti-Assad brigades . Did they raise arms out of passion for Jesus? Just two weeks ago, a group of 30 armed Alawi draft-dodgers urged others to join them because "We are shooting at [other sects] for Bashar al-Assad...Enough." Were they acting out of love for Ali?

 We know why Syrian Christians, Ismailis and even Alawis have taken up arms against Assad, because they tell us why in their defection videos: the regime is "corrupt" and "tyrannical." It "perpetrates massacres" and "destroys houses onto the heads of children." These were the same reasons given by most Syrian Sunnis who defected. They are related to simple dignity and humanity, not religious zeal.'

Russia's stance on Syria creates scepticism

 When we're talking about what to do about Syria, worrying about what Obama might do comes a long way behind stopping what Putin is doing in Syrians' lists of priorities.

 'Russia has provided significant support for the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. It has used its right of veto in the UN Security Council, along with China, on four consecutive occasions to defend the Assad government from international intervention. The flow of arms and ammunition from Russia to Syria has remained entirely uninterrupted, despite significant international pressure on Moscow to disengage. Opponents of the Assad regime consider Russia to be a partner in the government's crimes, violence and killing of the Syrian people.'

Report reaffirms Syria chemical weapons use

 'Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor James Bays, reporting from the UN, said that western members of the UN Security Council blamed the Syrian authorities for the attacks as only they had access to helicopters.

 US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power tweeted that "32 witnesses saw or heard sound of helicopters as bombs struck; 29 smelled chlorine. Only Syrian regime uses helos ." '

 Those shitheads who denied Assad's responsibility for the sarin attacks last August look more stupid every day. The idea that it was a US hoax designed to enable Iraq Mark II is ever more foolish in the light of the lack of action by the US or anyone else. Even now there is no threat to take action if the Security Council fails in its responsibility to protect the Syrian people from these war crimes, as the US prefers to use Syrian suffering as a card in its competition with Russia than to bring it to an end. Still it is Russia that has the main responsibility for the destabilisation of Syria and the region, by supplying Assad with weapons and denying his crimes.

 The Guardian reports photo is captioned, "The UN Security Council has been intensely involved in the issue of alleged chemical weapons use in Syria." The is headlined, "Syria Used Chlorine Gas In Attacks", but then says the experts failed to apportion blame, and we hear the lies of the Syrian régime and the Russians before a truncated version of Samantha Power's remark is added as an afterthought.[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/syria-chlorine-chemical-weapons-attacks-opcw]

Massive Protest In Damascus Against Al-Nusra and Assad

 "No To Authority, And No To Control!"

 The people united, and stuff.

Sisters 'scarred for life' by war

 Not scarred by war, but by Assad, a bomb wasn't just dropped, but dropped by his airforce.

 ' "There are lots of Syrians who need treatment and can't get it."

 And he prays quietly for Rahaf's recovery, and for all those suffering without help.'



 From two years ago*, when the narrative that this is a civil war rather than a government assault hadn't solidified. The failure to play is reminiscent of Iraqis under American bombing:

 'This is the story of one Syrian family who survived government shelling and reached safety - and treatment - in Jordan, when so many others have not.

 "They are not the same children that they were before. They used to play with other kids ... but now they don't like to go out."

 "We thank God that we were saved," says Abu Abdul Malik. "There are still people under the rubble - whose bodies have not been collected. We pray for them." '
*[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19554875]

Syrians entering Lebanon face new restrictions

 'Mashha is Sunni, like the bulk of the refugees.'

 90% of those in Lebanon, because the millions are fleeing from the Alawi-dominated state of Assad which has terrorised Sunnis in particular since the revolution began, not just "displaced by the civil war as rebel forces try to oust President Bashar al-Assad," as the BBC would have it.

Why no one cares about Syria

 'Just because the UN Security Council cannot find a solution is no more evidence of complexity than if my cat can't do long division.

 Are they as bad as each other, al-Qaida on one hand, Assad on the other? This is the argument of equivalence, and reasonably well-informed commentators use this all the time in relation to Syria. But the truth is, the Assad government has carried out such unbelievable crimes against its people, whether it is barrel bombing, whether it is the use of chemical weapons, whether it is the targeting of innocent populations of women and children, whether it is the targeting of hospitals and universities, these things are happening all the time. Sometimes, in the media, they talk about indiscriminate targeting, it isn't indiscriminate. It would be indiscriminate if they were collateral damage to a specific military target, but there is no military objective here, they are targeting their population, so it's not indiscriminate. And when Obama said, give us your chemical weapons, he handed a permission slip to Assad to do his worst, as long as it didn't involve chemical weapons.'

 Also shows a Punch cartoon from 1847 with the same dismissal of the Irish as violent savages that is employed against the Sunni Muslims of Syria. "Spare a trifle your honour, for a poor Irish lad to buy a blunderbuss with."

The rise and ugly fall of a moderate Syrian rebel

 'Moderate rebels “are living literally hand to mouth,” he said. “The West never provided much help, the Saudis never provided much.”

 “In the absence of reliable support, of course you’re going to have commanders desperate to find resources for their troops,” Ford said. “This American caution aggravates problems. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” '

Syrian Coalition Slams Iran’s Arrogant Remarks

 The real foreign intervention, the war we should be trying to stop.

 'Saleh calls upon the international community to force Iran to pull its terrorist militias out of Syria and stop aiding Assad in his barbaric war on the Syrian people. “Such practices reflect the insistence of Hezbollah and the Iranian regime to try to transform the popular uprising in Syria into a sectarian war that will lead to dire consequences not only to Syria but the whole region.” '

Inside the Islamic State caliphate, life goes on

 Unlike the Independent's opinion formers, who want us to side with Assad.

 'Asked if he would rather live under Assad or Isis, Ibrahim considers. "I will choose neither … in both any mistake can cost you your life." '

US ignored early plan to stop Islamic State

 'The plea for immediate financial support for moderate forces in the east, backing for a rebel offensive in Aleppo that would divert Islamic State forces, and relief and medical supplies in the east went unanswered.

 “Two or three million dollars would have changed the whole thing, but we never heard back from them.”

 “Unfortunately, the current strategy being implemented results in the increase of terrorism,” said Bahra, the businessman who heads the Syrian Opposition Coalition. “Some battalions are not being supplied with anything: food, clothing, fuel, what they need for survival. You are pushing them to be the prey to any extreme terrorist organization that offers assistance. But no one is listening.” '

Protests from Homs to Aleppo

 'Video from Friday points to protests in Syria from Homs to Aleppo, demanding a lifting to regime sieges and expressing support for insurgents.'

 I was also looking at this* from March 2013, about what a shit Tariq Ali has become, and how the central issue remains the same.

 'Former leftist icon Tariq Ali spoke on Russia Today of “Russia and China resisting attempts by the West to take Syria over.” Russia is resupplying the Assad regime with the materiel with which to slaughter the Syrian people, making Ali’s performance on Russia’s satellite as unedifying, and as distant from reality, as that of a commentator telling Fox News that Palestinian resistance is simply an Iranian attempt to take over Israel.

 Syrians need weapons to finish Assad before the crater of this disaster is too deep to climb out of. Commentators who claim that more weapons will just make things worse, that neither side can win the fight, should acknowledge that vast swathes of the country have already been liberated. This was achieved despite the commitment of the regime’s sectarian hardcore, the success of its divide and rule tactics, and its fundamental weapons advantage, for the simple reason that al-Assad has long lost legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of Syrians. Any uptick in weapons supply therefore immediately translates into the liberation of new territories, as seen recently in Dara’a province and the Damascus suburbs.'
*[https://qunfuz.com/2013/03/30/a-subtle-shift/]

If Only They Would Leave

 In which Patrick Cockburn brings the same lies to the situation in Iraq that he has to Syria.
Why do Sunni Muslims in Iraq tolerate or support ISIS? Because of the sectarian massacres of the Iranian-supported Shia government and its militias. Cockburn agrees formally that the government is the problem, but the Iranians are completely whitewashed. 

 'They now have American and Iranian help, which is an advantage.'

 And so Cockburn makes more minor features the central problem. The Iraqi army is corrupt, the Kurdish forces couldn't defend Mount Sinjar, Sunni leaders who claim they would resist ISIS are living in five-star hotels - just as Cockburn reduces the Free Syrian Army to generals living in five-star hotels in Istanbul, and the complaints about inefficiency and corruption displace the major worry of the forces, ISIS or Iranian-backed, that are massacring them. His crocodile tears for the Sunni Arabs do not impress.

Black Holes and Media Missionaries

 'Foley and Satloff aren’t the only journalists IS has killed: there have been many more—Iraqis and Syrians—whose names remain unknown to the world. And IS isn’t the only force in Syria killing journalists and aid workers: Bashar al Assad’s regime has been doing it far longer.

 The regime killed Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times along with the French photographer Rémi Ochlik when, in the first major escalation of the war, it used artillery on the Baba Amr district of Homs. A month before that it had killed Gilles Jacquier of France 2. Damascus has tried to control the narrative by making it too dangerous for journalists to report from Syria—unless they embedded with the regime.

 In Syria, the hack reporter’s need for balance has created a misleading picture of the conflict. One often hears the bien pensant liberal lament how “both sides” in the conflict are just as bad as the other. But “both sides” in the conflict are not equal. One side is a state with its hierarchies, chains of command and coercive apparatus intact; the other side is a diffuse, uncoordinated and disorganized opposition. The crimes of the former reflect policy; those of the latter only reflect on the group or individual perpetrating them. The regime’s crimes have been sustained and wholesale; the crimes of the opposition are retail and sporadic.'

Syrian conflict has claimed 76,000 lives in deadliest year yet, say monitors

 This wasn't on the frontline, the guy on the right has his safety catch on. Why is Assad pictured and quoted, and nobody from the opposition is? The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has been questionable in some of its reporting often omitting to mention Free Syrian Army involvement on the rebel side, and I think it accepts exaggerated figures for government losses, allowing Patrick Cockburn to claim in 2013, while calling the SOHR pro-opposition, that the rebels were killing more people than Assad. I can't find any more details about this on their website, but clearly the Guardian doesn't care to divide the groups according to whether they fight Assad or not, and give any idea who 'the rebels' are.

 'More than 15,000 rebel fighters were killed, as were nearly 17,000 militants from jihadi groups, including Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.'

Syria's children behind bars

 'Marwan Abdulsalam, a former detainee at the Military Intelligence Branch, told al-Araby al-Jadeed that "there were more than 30 children there; some of them were younger than ten". There were times when the children were beaten with a flexible silicon rod," he said. "They were in pain and screamed, but the interrogators didn't stop beating them to get more information out of them, about their families and relatives."

 According to SNHR, children are subject to almost the same torture methods employed on adults, including sexual violence.'

Two female Italian aid workers have been kidnapped

 You can see from the Free Syrian flag they're wrapped in that they aren't just aid workers, but revolutionaries. Supporters of an uprising that has been going on in Syria against Bashar al-Assad since he had schoolkids tortured for anti-government graffiti in 2011. Unlike those who have bought into the Russian and Iranian propaganda that those fighting Assad were Muslim terrorists, often recycled in the Western media in a six of one half a dozen of the other OMG it's all so confusing manner, they could see that Assad was waging a war on the Syrian people, and it would be an act of solidarity to provide aid, to limit Assad war strategy of forcing those he couldn't control out of Syria by bombing and starvation. So it is wonderful news that they are safe and well. I assumed for the longest time that they were dead, as they would have been in an ISIS beheading video by now.

 The bad news is that they are being held by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Victory Front, the most extreme of the Islamist militias that is fighting to overthrow Assad, not like ISIS simply wishing to take advantage of the chaos to set up their own caliphate. Not as RT* claim today, "They are believed to be currently held either by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front or their fearsome allies, Islamic State." Granted they aren't as opposed to ISIS as the Free Syrian Army. Where they have had power, they have sometimes been intolerant of opposition, but nothing like the wankmag version of the seventh century you see with ISIS, or Assad's equal brutality. Which is why it makes sense for supporters of the revolution in Syria to demand that al-Nusra release the women unconditionally, because Nusra are supposed to be in the same fight.

 And it is only supporters of the revolution who do have the authority to make such a demand. It would be good if the Italian government were to do everything in its power to get the women released. If al-Nusra get a large ransom, and they use it to buy weapons to use against Assad, still shame on them for kidnapping innocent supporters of the Syrian revolution, but not the worst outcome. If the West had done the right thing, and given the Free Syrian Army a fraction of the weaponry Russia has given to Assad, we wouldn't have any of these problems. But instead the world has been happily seduced by scares of America as the warmonger in Syria. Something only really believed in Syria by Jabhat al-Nusra, who have been bombed by the Americans, on the bullshit pretext that they had some Khorosan group (which I suspect comes from a Clash song) at their heart. Not a pretext that I recall the conspiracy theorists of the left who post pictures of John McCain claiming he's a supporter of ISIS bothering to examine too closely, because it didn't fit the agenda of only being opposed to bombing if it was by the Americans on Assad, which was the great hoax of last year that denied solidarity to Syrians in the wake of the chemical attacks.

 Al-Nusra gain support among those who see the Americans as the enemy, and when the Americans have done so little to dislodge Assad but are happy to attack his enemies, it's easy to see why. On the other hand, as I said at the time, if you're going to declare allegiance to al-Qaida, you are asking to have the Americans bomb you, and that goes double when you kidnap revolutionaries.

*[http://rt.com/news/219199-italian-hostages-syria-video/]

Charlie Brooker's Wipe 2014 - Adam Curtis

 'In Syria, we are told that President Assad is the evil enemy, but then his enemies turn out to be even more evil than him.'

 This is not true, and Adam Curtis has fallen into exactly the trap he says he is trying to expose. Assad has committed enough crimes to be dragged before the International Criminal Court a dozen times over, yet nothing is done, because he is not an enemy the West is trying to get rid of as the dominant media narrative would have us believe. The narrative has gone along with his propaganda that he is fighting terrorists, so despite the fact that it has been the Free Syrian Army that has battled ISIS while Assad has done deals with them, ISIS are still labelled as his enemy.

 Turned round, Curtis' analysis could help us see the holes in the anti-Syrian narrative of the world's media. The way in which the Russian state has provided aid for the opposition to discredit it when the funding is exposed, is like the way the Syrian opposition is condemned for accepting weapons from the Gulf states and the US, ignoring the vastly disproportionate arming of Assad by Russia and Iran.

Besieged Aleppo residents turn to farming

 'Al-Maysar neighborhood’s story is the same as all other eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, from which more than 80% of its citizens were displaced due to the military campaign of the regime on the city and the barrel bombing, which started around a year ago.

 Aleppo was the most populated city in the country before the outbreak of war, counting around 2.3 million people. A worker at the relief office in the local council affiliated with the opposition told Al-Monitor in October that only about 300,000 people live in the part of the city that is under the rebels’ control today.'

Damascus’ stifled voice from the left

 'As the uprising went through its gradual transition towards militarization, the Syrian Revolutionary Youth attempted to sustain the peaceful side of the uprising, maintaining that peaceful activism and armed struggle can go hand in hand. While generally supporting the Free Syrian Army, they frequently held banners criticizing what they considered violations by the armed opposition groups and insisted on defending national unity and rejecting sectarianism.

 The Palestinian flag was lifted alongside the Syrian revolutionary flag; chants in solidarity with Palestine, and Gaza in particular, were chanted alongside slogans in solidarity with besieged and rebellious Syrian towns and cities; the names of Palestinian martyrs were mentioned in protests alongside the names of Syrian martyrs; young women and men protested and sang side-by-side; and calls for bread, gasoline and a dignified life for all were inseparable from their calls for the downfall of the regime, and the achievement of civil liberties and political freedom.

 This December 30 marks one year since the arrest of seven of the collective's activists from a Rukneddine home by Syrian security forces. Their arrest remained largely unpublished with the families of the detainees demanding anonymity out of fear for their children’s well-being. Anonymity did not help. All but one of the seven detainees taken during that night raid have been reportedly killed under torture as confirmed by their cellmates.'

The South Will Rise Again

 'Bashar al-Assad is well aware that the relative endurance of rebel rule in Daraa challenges his narrative that the West must choose between his regime and the terrorists. In the coming months, it is likely that the regime will try to retake Daraa to prevent just this sort of a secular, nationalist alternative from emerging. Therefore, any international efforts to “freeze” the conflict in areas such as Aleppo should take into account that the regime may use any freed-up forces and assets in order to turn its firepower southward. Freezes in fighting in the north should not come at the expense of those in the south, where rebel rule is providing one of the few blueprints for how Syria could emerge from this crisis.'

Response to “Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars”

 'The real crime of CISPOS is not advocating “regime change” in Syria but calling attention to the genocidal policies of the Baathist tyranny. It is quite depressing that people on the left can stoop so low as to sweep its crimes under the rug but a lot of this has to do with Islamophobia. As the term phobia implies, there is fear and hatred of the Syrian poor who invoke Islamic rhetoric in a desperate struggle to keep their spirits up in a war that has cost 200,000 lives. If Syria were as populous as the USA, this would equate to 3 million dead, all within four years.'

Response to the attack on Syria peace activists

 Andrew Scott Berman:

 'Nothing better describes this descent into dogmatism and betrayal of solidarity than the tragic attitude of many who call themselves “anti-imperialist” towards the people of Syria. For 50 years the Assad family and its cohorts have ruled that nation with a tyranny that rivals the worst in human history. All opposition is crushed with the iron fist of massacre and industrial-level torture.

 And while the situation in Syria has indeed been made complex by the intervention of many outside forces with contending interests, the base of the conflict, a popular rebellion against tyranny, remains.

 Today, there are some, but not enough, US peace groups that recognize this and stand, in the best tradition of the US peace movements, stand in solidarity with the Syrian people’s quest for a just society. Far too many, totally ignorant of Syria’s proud history, see the conflict only in terms of the role of the US, with meaningless slogans like “No US War on Syria”, while by far the greatest death and destruction in Syria is now caused by the despotic Assad regime, armed to the teeth with Russian and Iranian supplied weapons.'

Broadcasting House

 Maureen Lipmann has been an apologist for the Israeli government for many years, see her dig about descending rooftops (as the IDF kills families) in Gaza here. It is the abandonment of Syria by many of those who see themselves as pro-Palestinian and by the liberal media that have made this a propaganda coup for supporters of Israel, because it's true.

 "My story is the seven million Syrian refugees, that's going to run, and run, and run, and we're not doing anything about it at all. I think we're taking ninety people, ninety refugees, and we have to somehow look at history, and say, this is exactly what happened in 1938, when they wouldn't take any refugees from Germany, and it resulted in the Holocaust; and just because we're frightened of Assad, another military dictator, it doesn't mean we shouldn't help.

 I have seen no pictures, I've seen nothing on 24-hour news. I am well accustomed to seeing every rooftop that descends in Gaza, because that's where all the reporters are, in the same hotel, all chatting away, and swapping photos; but as far as Syria's concerned, they're absolutely petrified to do anything or report on anything."

 Angela Rippon: "That was picked up on one of your sister programmes on Radio 4, on PM, when Eddie Mair did that amazing programme where he gave over half the programme to Dr. David Nott, who is a surgeon who has spent the last twenty years going to places of conflict around the world, to help as a surgeon; and he's now spent six weeks of the last two years in Syria, and he was making precisely that point. He did a brilliant interview where he said the terrible injuries he as a surgeon was seeing, in that hospital, but the point that he was making, was that the reason why nobody is taking any interest there any more was that the journalists are not there because it is too dangerous, and therefore it has fallen off the news agenda."

Escaping Assad’s Rape Prisons: A Survivor Tells Her Story

 'During one session, the commander tied her legs apart and they beat a male detainee viciously in front of her with his head jammed between her spread legs.'

British doctor's gloom treating victims of Aleppo siege

 Dr. David Nott:

 "Things started going wrong in about January, February, when the Syrian régime started using barrel bombs. Barrel bombs are this barrel full of TNT, maybe 500kg of TNT, which are dropped from about 6000 feet from a helicopter, and two or three or four of them are dropped at a time. It had 2 million people last year, there are only 350,000 this year, it's because for the last 6-8 months, it's been completely destroyed by barrel bombs...It was child after child who had horrendous wounds, you couldn't really do much for, so the results from surgery were atrocious. The acute pain that families were suffering from their people, their family members dying, and not being able to help them, that was the worst part of it."

Gulf-Iranian Proxy War Spills Onto the Soccer Pitch

 Proxy war, one of the big lies of the Syrian conflict, designed to make the Syrians struggling from freedom invisible, replaced with bogeymen from the Gulf. Everywhere else can have popular revolts, but Syria only a Saudi-inspired civil war. Maybe the Palestinians cancelled because the Iranians have helped Assad kill thousands of Palestinians since 2011, and is still bombing and besieging the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk.

Meet the Accidental Warriors of the Free Syrian Army

 'We were in Aleppo when the Assad régime dropped a bomb on a busy street.
"Aren't you done with our blood, you pig? Criminal! Criminal!" '

 The US is not supporting the rebels the way the Russians and Iranians are supporting the régime, with billions of dollars of weaponry and thousands of men. Precisely the excuse President Obama gave recently for not supporting them in 2012 was that they were farmers and dentists and pharmacists.

ISIL has killed our dreams

 'Young Yusuf Abdullah, 28, was forced to leave his village in Deraa province after ANF [al-Nusra Front] gunmen threatened that he either join them or be killed.

 "I am a supporter of the revolution in Syria," he said, "but I am also against extremist terrorist groups that take advantage of youth, threaten them and steal their dreams at gunpoint." '

The Islamic State is failing at being a state

 “When stuff breaks down, they get desperate. It doesn’t have a whole lot of engineers and staff to run the cities, so things are breaking down.”

 ISIS exists because the world abandoned Syrians fighting against Bashar al-Assad, and so a vacuum grew up in the desperation of the areas outside his control, where his siege and bombing made any sort of government impossible, and so these Four Lions style barbarians, who didn't waste energy fighting Assad nor he them, could destroy the Syrian revolution. If Syrians were given the means to deal with Assad, ISIS would soon be a distant memory.

 Things are a little more tricky in Iraq, where American support for Iranian-backed Shia sectarian hegemony has put many Sunnis on the same side as ISIS, but the central problem is not the limited amount of American bombing that has killed some ISIS and some civilians, but their toleration of the Iranian-backed militias that have committed mass murder , particularly in Syria, and their refusal to give the Free Syrian Army the support it needs to eradicate the greatest source of violence in the region, the Assad régime.

Foreign jihadis change face of Syrian civil war

 The way the headline spins it, "jihadis" fighting Assad are the problem, but the truth is that the abandonment of Syrians by the world is the problem, and the majority of the problem with foreigners are those who have gone to support the totalitarians with little local support, Assad and ISIS.

 “They provided decisive support in many battles. We were desperate for anyone to help us, but nobody – not the UN, not Nato, not even other Arab states – stepped up to do so. So the foreigners came. Some of them are good, they want to fight Assad and help us, but many have turned bad. They come for the money, for women. They destroyed the revolution.”

In One Corner of Syria, Christmas Spirit Manages to Survive

 Assad kidnaps and kills journalists. Those who go to Damascus to report his side are safe though.

 'They have almost come to blows after the Assad contingent tried to seize passing Western journalists and deliver them into the custody of the regime, which retains control of a few security installations in the city center.'

WHO says Syria opens Aleppo for medical aid

 Good. Not that the Syrian government is facing prosecution for the crime of not letting it through until now. Hopefully this is a sign of Assad's weakness, that his Russian patrons will no longer give him cover for all of his war crimes.

 The author of the piece says, 'all sides of the conflict have also prevented medicine from crossing front lines;' it has been the régime, not the Free Syrian Army, that has systematically denied passage of medicines, as well as bombing hospitals and kidnapping and murdering doctors.

Escalating Assault on Rebel-Held District

 'Government shelling on the area has intensified since the breakdown of talks between the warring parties in early October 2014. Since October 2013, the government has restricted the ability of al-Waer residents to leave the area and has limited, and at times completely blocked, deliveries of humanitarian assistance to the estimated 70,000-100,000 civilians still there. Most recently, on December 16, 2014, an attack left a reported 36 dead including at least 33 civilians.

 “While attention has moved on from Homs, tens of thousands of civilians are suffering and others dying in al-Waer,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “The Syrian government should not be allowed to use its unlawful siege tactics at such a high price for the civilian population.”

 In addition to shelling attacks, residents also told Human Rights Watch that government or pro-government snipers, including those positioned in the Homs al-Kabeer Hospital area and the al-Gardenia Tower in the Old Homs neighborhood, have also targeted civilians including women and children.'

Syrian rebels prepare to defend ruined Aleppo

 “Hezbollah are the most powerful and the Syrian army takes orders from them,” said a local leader on the eastern edge of Aleppo, where regime scouts probe most nights. “The Iraqis were also here, along with the Houthis from Yemen, but they have all gone home [to fight wars]. We can deal with what’s left.”

 So not a war determined by regional agendas on all sides, but one in which foreign powers have pitched in to help Bashar al-Assad, and his victims have been abandoned.

 “Somebody has to win this war,” said Samer Zeitoun, a local leader. “I hope it’s us and I hope it’s soon.”

Documenting the tragedy of the Syrian revolt

 "To begin with, they were very influenced by their parents' revolution rhetoric, but they gradually opened up and began talking about their lives and their dreams."

 Maybe their parents know that the victory of the revolution is the only way they will have lives and dreams.

On Nir Rosen’s Definitions of ‘Sectarian’ and ‘Secular’

 Thomas Pierret:

 'Rosen’s report also includes the baffling claim that most rebels did not take up arms to defend themselves, but “out of religious zeal and political extremism”. So, from 2011 on, tens of thousands of ordinary Syrians picked up arms in a context of bloody repression of demonstrations, mass round up and torture, followed by shelling and air bombing of civilians. By 2012, Rosen was writing, on the basis of his own observations, that by cordoning off their neighbourhoods, the rebels had allowed people to demonstrate without being shot at by security forces, which strikingly looks like a defensive move to me. But after two more years of meticulous research (was it in SANA’s archives?), Rosen eventually managed to isolate the one main independent variable behind the militarisation of the uprising: it was “religious zeal and political extremism”. It is that simple: why care about the context when you can make sweeping essentialist assumptions about Sunni extremism?'

Don't Drift Towards Assad to Tackle Isis

 Alyn Smith:

'The overwhelming call on the ground, Jarah tells me, is for Europe to help the rebels. We must send a message of hope to the Syrian people: that we will not let them down. Rami Jarah, an independent Syrian journalist who reported from Aleppo during coalition strikes against ISIS, tells me that no Syrian, living under continuous bombardment for the last three years, can understand why any Western democracy would even consider collaborating with a war criminal like Assad. Public opinion is already baffled, if not disgusted and angry, that the United States and its allies have decided to bomb ISIS in Syria without laying a finger on Assad's warplanes. Civilians living in Aleppo now feel like they are being bombed by the regime during the day, and by the coalition by night. The way they see it, nobody cares about them - not even Europe.'

The Assad Regime’s Political “Achilles’ Heel”

 'If, as remains most likely, the U.S. and its coalition partners disappoint Assad’s hopes, the regime will come under increasing strain internally. Having lost the crucial advantage of its previous, relative superiority over the armed rebellion, the regime will need to generate even greater domestic and external resources, but these are already at the limit and cannot be increased without a high political price.

 Domestically, it will struggle to retain its already loose control over the semi-autonomous military and economic actors whose rise it encouraged as a means of devolving the burden of defence and revenue generation in loyalist areas. And if the regime appears unable or unwilling to protect vulnerable population centers or to mitigate the financial strains of loyalist communities, its home front may start to crumble.

 The regime clearly believes that loyalist constituencies have no choice but to continue fighting, but its margin for maneuver is narrowing. It realizes that credible reforms would set it on the path to dismantling itself, but by insisting on an exclusively military approach, it takes itself closer to the point where it has no political or social cushion domestically.'

Future Israeli Strikes in Syria: Shifting Dynamics?

 '(1) An attack by Israel against the assets of Assad/Hizbollah (2) prompts an attack in response by the Assad regime against the rebel groups (FSA and IF) and the population; (3) consequently, the opposition is weakened and ISIS is strengthened, (4) which undermines the efforts of the US in the war against the Islamic State, (5) and as a result, the US will demand that Israel now refrain from attacks in Syria.'

 Yes. Israel and Russia aren't about to come to blows over Syria, as the geopolitical analysts were claiming last year. Assad responds to Israeli strikes by killing civilians, and nobody seems to think that a cause to take action against Assad. The mass of the Syrian population see America as failing to help rather than being the main enemy, but when the US tolerate Assad, people are pushed towards the extreme jihadis, partly because of the US' support for Israel.

 I don't think the US is so concerned to stop Israeli attacks in Syria. The US is playing a double game anyway, providing minimal support to the opposition, while assuring Iran that it won't challenge its influence in the region, reflecting incompatible objectives (as well as splits within the US administration) of involving the US as little as possible, letting Russia and Iran suffer their own Vietnam and stopping the humanitarian disaster in Syria. When they won't stop the Israelis bombing Gaza, I don't think they are going to expend too much capital here.

Chronicles of Disintegration

 'Over the past months, the civilian and military Syrian officials have skimped in no way to force their young compatriots to join the ranks of the army or a paramilitary organizations created to assist the regular forces. Unfortunately for them, the young Syrians refuse to hear, and also unwilling to participate in the murder of their fellow citizens, or to know the fate of hundreds of soldiers left on their own and killed in abominable conditions by ISIS, they are more than reluctant to answer calls in uniform.

 Having lost the confidence of a number of his followers, up to and including in the ranks of the Alawite community, it uses methods more expeditious. Waking up in the collective memory of painful memories, the abduction of young Syrians and sending them to the front without sufficient preparation, confirm the opinion of many that Bashar al-Assad, like his father and his regime are no different from forces that once occupied and enslaved their country.

 The methods currently used by the government to coerce young Syrians to join the ranks of the army are compared by them to Safar Barlik, a recruitment method used in the early 20th century by the Ottoman Empire when threatened with collapse. In a desperate attempt to push back the enemy, the Sublime Porte had sent gendarmes in the countries in which still exercised authority, to remove the young men she needed. But this way of doing had proved disastrous, young and enlisted with neither the will to fight or military training that would have enabled them to withstand the enemy troops.

 Numerous Syrians now hope that the same causes will cause the same effects ...'

 There's also some more stuff on the same site, a five-parter on the effect of the war on women, a suggestion of régime responsibility for the theft and destruction of the country's archaeological heritage, and currently headed by a questioning of the reliability of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, all in French.

Syrian Children Forage Through Trash to Survive

 “My father was a taxi driver, and his car was our source of living, and he was once beaten by the police before us because they accused him of joining the Free Army, and they then found out that he was innocent of this charge. My father became too afraid to leave home, he feared that if he did, he might be accused again or get taken at army checkpoints. I must work so we can eat.”

 You used to get reports like this from Central America in the 80s. Left-wingers would explain that this is what drives the people to revolution. But the American ambassador would announce that things were perfectly safe and clean in the centre of town where he lived, and all the problems were down to the Russian-backed terrorists in the countryside. The names change, but the song remains the same.

 The longer Assad is able to cling to power, the crazier a country Syria will become.

‘The Syrian opposition must end perpetual rivalries’

 'Bashar Al Assad is finished. He survives only as an instrument of pressure used by the Iranians and Russians in their confrontations/negotiations with Western powers. He has no future and will not be able to build on anything. Anyone who destroys his country and is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of his citizens simply to stay in power a few more years cannot but continue along the same lines. Until such time when he is dragged in front of the International Criminal Court, where he will be tried for crimes against humanity.'

 Interesting comments on the Free Syrian Army and the Gulf Co-operation Council, and more on Iran and Hezbollah, too.

Syrian refugee children find their voice through theatre in Jordan

 ' "We have been arrested, destroyed and our childhood has been destroyed."

 Some scenes in the play depicted what happens at Syrian government checkpoints and other scenes showed Syrian girls who have become responsible for their families after the death of both parents.

 Ten-year-old Salam Hussein said, "I am here to raise my voice to the world and tell them what has happened to us in Syria and the suffering we are living." '

A Dictator’s Best Friend

 It doesn't help that the truth about Assad is mixed up with a lot of garbage about Cuba, but it is true nonetheless.

 'In the late summer of 2013 Bashar Assad was caught using chemical weapons against his own people. The president and his secretary of state decried this violation of international norms and pledged, in televised addresses, to punish the Syrian tyrant for wanton slaughter and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The application of deadly force against Assad’s air force and military installations would cripple the regime and hasten the end of a civil war that has taken the lives of some 200,000 Syrians. But suddenly Obama reversed course. He signed on to a Russian proposal to prevent a military strike in exchange for Assad’s “giving up” his barbaric tools.

 Today Bashar Assad remains in power, his opposition is divided, he has entered into an alliance of convenience with the medieval Islamic State that governs from Raqaa to Mosul. The weapons? Earlier this month the U.S. government—Barack Obama’s government—accused Syria of ongoing “systematic use” of chemical arms. I repeat: ongoing.

 Not only has Obama failed to achieve his stated aims of removing Assad and ending the WMD threat. The situation is more dangerous than it was a year ago because the Islamic State’s menagerie of Saddam loyalists and itinerant holy warriors is securing ground from which to launch attacks on targets throughout the world. Baathist dictators, chemical agents, refugees, Islamic armies are the consequence of this president’s curious mixture of false promises and aggrieved passivity.

 Barack Obama threw the Castros a lifeline, rescued Assad.'

Should We Oppose the Intervention Against ISIS?

 Rime Allaf:

 'Let’s be very clear that for the longest time, the Syrian opposition was not asking for a “boots on the ground”-style intervention, or even for a bombing campaign led by the U.S. What was being requested early on was the establishment of humanitarian corridors with the help of a “no-fly-zone” and/or weapons for the FSA to defend liberated areas from the relentless barrel bombing campaign of the regime. Since none of this happened, it was to be expected that these Islamist groups have been able to gain so much ground and find themselves with a weakened opponent in the FSA. Now the Assad regime doesn’t even need to worry about ISIS because it’s got the U.S. fighting [ISIS].'

Syria: where modern and medieval warfare combines

 'It must be made clear to those who target or indiscriminately attack civilians and civilian infrastructure that such crimes cannot be committed with impunity. The recent rise in attacks on schools – once places of learning, safety and fraternity – is illustrative of the depths to which Syria’s belligerents will sink if left unchecked, and a stark reminder that an entire generation of Syrian children is being lost to this conflict.'

 The FSA doesn't target schools, none of the Syrian rebel groups do. The overwhelming majority of attacks on civilians have been by Assad's forces, with ISIS a distant second, and the Syrian rebel groups nowhere. Jabhat al-Nusra has occasionally shelled government controlled areas without caring too much about civilian casualties. And that's about it. One bloke last year chopped out the liver of a rapist and murderer, and there was no other image of horror from Syria for months.

 People like Miliband know that the Assad government is virtually the sole perpetrator here. But his business is working with the realpolitik of international diplomacy, so tries to put things in an even-handed way, in the hope that if nobody feels threatened, some good can be done. It isn't going to work, as Assad's survival strategy is based on delivering unimaginable horror on his people. As for the UN representative de Mistura's plan to freeze the struggle of Syrians against Assad while everyone fights ISIS which the writers praise, as Robin Yassin-Kassab puts it, it's like a plan to cool the ovens at Auschwitz.

 But we can expect a lot more of this even-handed blaming of both sides by world powers and their media, while Syrians are tortured and killed by Assad's forces every day.