Syrians make a new life in New Jersey

 "They" aren't some impersonal civil war, or Western imperialism, but the Assad régime.

 ' "They were using barrel bombs and heavy artillery in the fighting. We lived in a situation where we could be detained at any moment without warning."

 The girls are old enough to remember living in fear in Daraa: being sent to shelters when the shelling began, and of keeping a daily tally of deaths.

 "Of course we are lucky to be here," Fatin says. "Imagine how our children lived under rockets and bombardment. But we see how much our families there are still suffering." '

Kayla Mueller's boyfriend describes effort to free her

 'Alkhani said he spoke to her often about Syria, where bloodshed has gripped the country under the regime of embattled President Bashar Assad, and sent her recordings, photographs and other information that she used for her blog. Nearly half of Syria's population has been displaced, and some 200,000 people have died in the fighting.

 "She wanted everyone to use their freedom to help us get freedom," he said.'

Relative of slain US Muslims hails Erdogan, slams US response

 ' “Unfortunately,Muslim countries did not rally for the Muslims’ blood in Syria or for children in Gaza, Damascus, Ghouta, Aleppo or Homs. But they send international coalition’s warplanes to kill children. If Deah’s blood is going to move the stagnant water, I hope so and let it be a light inside the darkness.”

 Shaza is from Idlib and works in humanitarian aid since the war on Iraq and was also on board the Mavi Marmara vessel to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza. After the Syrian revolution began, she went to Turkey, where she works as Arabic teacher. Her son was killed by the Syrian regime.'

Many players in the Deraa campaign

 More than ever, the Syrian revolution is a fight against foreign occupation.

 'Estimates of the manpower available on the regime side, bolstered by Hezbollah fighters and Shiite paramilitaries from several countries, have run as high as 8,000. The observer said he thought 4,000 was a more reasonable number, but with only 800 Syrian troops among them.'

 This is a hopeful sign.

 'Nusra is negotiating with rebel groups in a bid to make a dramatic break with Al-Qaeda and possibly move to the Islamic Front, an alliance of seven conservative militias. Nusra would likely accept such a move, the observer said, if its difficult conditions are met – such as being removed from the world’s terror lists – due to the extremely hostile international climate generated by the actions of its bitter rival ISIS.'

Governments should pay ransom for hostages

 After Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times was murdered by Assad's forces in Homs in 2012, media organizations stopped covering Syria from the opposition side, claiming that the proliferation of armed groups made it impossible to guarantee the safety of journalists. We never hear from the tame reporters who go to Damascus that the Free Syrian Army has tried to protect them throughout.

 'Aygün points out that FSA members respect journalists as they had helped him enter Syria numerous times before and cover the civil war across the country. “My calmness and relaxed attitude in the area largely stems from the FSA's stance. The FSA respect me as a journalist, even though I often take photographs of them executing their enemies, because there is bloodshed in the country and I help Syrians make their voices heard.” '

‘From Syria With Love’

 "Syrians send their love to all of those who remember us in these traumatic times. We send our love to the Free Syrian Army who have done their best to protect us and our dreams."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYydp4d337Q]

The atrocities committed by Assad's forces must not be forgotten

 'Around 200 to 250 people were gathered in the public square when it was bombed by a fighter jet. Ambulances were immediately directed to the area to evacuate the wounded. The first batch of wounded arrived few minutes later: 20 bodies and 15 wounded. The triage started right away and priority was given to people with life-threatening wounds...'

The Assad regime’s Daraa campaign is a desperate defensive maneuver

 'Across an area of more than 50 kilometers, southern Syria is witnessing fierce battles: the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is pitted against fighters from Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRCG) Qods Force, supported by Iraqi and Afghan fighters.

 When asked about Syrian troops fighting in the battle, Abu al-Majd al-Zoabi, executive director of the Southern Front’s press office, says that their presence is marginal; that they are being used as bait for the FSA; and that foreign fighters are shooting and killing them if they are hit so as to prevent their capture.

 “We have actually come close to the gates of the west Damascus countryside, and that is what’s keeping the regime up at night. We are fighting to defend our land, our homes and our people, and [the regime] is fighting to defend an occupation project.” '

Douma exterminated

 Campaign member Firas al-Abdallah:

 "Activists in the city know very well that, once again, the world is turning a blind eye, which they know from their four years of similar experiences, but they are hoping to send a message that inspires those with an ounce of humanity in them to call on their government to do something.

 Since the beginning the month, they have documented 103 civilian deaths. This number could rise at any moment because the continued digging through rubble to uncover dead bodies and the hundreds of injured people, who the swamped medical posts can no longer take in."

Assad holds on in war without end

 Jeremy Bowen is full of bollocks. We start with him talking to FSA fighters in his only trip to the rebel side. They probably told him they wanted a democratic state that respected minorities (as you can see from the reference to Turkey), but all he hears is Islamist flavour and all he sees are beards.

 'I managed to cross from government-controlled Damascus to meet them last summer. Their commanders were bearded, pious Muslims who said they condemned the brutality of the jihadists. They said they were prepared to die to destroy President Bashar al-Assad and his regime, and wanted to build a state modelled on 21st Century Turkey, under a government with a distinct Islamist flavour.'

 He then interprets the teachers words as blaming all sides equally, after throwing in the she is a 'devout Muslim'.

 'It's President Assad's duty to leave the children out of this war. He needs to stop shelling the schools - but both sides need to stop attacking the children. They have nothing to do with this war. Adults started the fighting - and they can carry on - but they can't use their children to further their aims.'

 There is nothing that can be done is the cry of the liberal who wants to excuse injustice.

 'Is there a way to end the war in Syria? Not at the moment, or in the foreseeable future.'

 People are afraid to say how much they hate him because they know they may be arrested and tortured.

 'President Assad was never as unpopular as the leaders who were deposed in 2011.'

 He has support, most noticeably among the Alawis who have dominated his state, much as whites did in South Africa, to them the anti-apartheid movement must have been a cruel joke.

 'President Assad has survived, and that would have been impossible without a degree of popular support. For his supporters, and others who just wanted a quiet life, the so-called "Arab Spring" has been a cruel joke.'

 Civilians in areas besieged my Assad have had no food and face barrel bombings. The civilians in Adra were kept out of the fighting for three weeks. The BBC has generally gone with mentioning Nusra involvement in any attack to the exclusion of the FSA (see the Golan Heights border crossing). There was a disinformation campaign by RT claiming that the rebels had killed many civilians.*

 'Adra was damaged badly in the battle to eject a coalition of armed rebels, dominated by the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Mohammad Raja Mahawish, a 40-year-old surveyor, was held in the cellar of his block of flats with his wife, children and 60 others for 22 days after the rebels seized the town almost a year ago.'

 It is only the foreign support that has kept Assad in power. He does not have widespread support among Sunni Muslims. Much of the business elite continues to support him, but it is fear that keeps others from expressing their opposition. And even the Alawis are beginning to demonstrate, such as against the governor of Homs for bombing schoolchildren in an attempt to blame rebels. The idea that the armed forces are intact is a joke. They've shrunk from 320,000 to 80,000 with the mass defections, and those remaining don't really want to fight, which is why he needs the Iranians so badly.

 'It has had military, diplomatic and financial support from Iran, Russia and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. But just as importantly, it has kept the support of most of Syria's minorities and enough of the majority Sunni Muslims to survive. That has helped deliver the loyalty of most of the armed forces, another crucial factor. Wholesale defections were often predicted in the first few years of fighting, but never happened.'

 Truth isn't important when reporting on Syria. What needs to be done is to interview régime supporters, put a weak version of the truth to them, and let their denial be the story, which is how you achieve balance.

 'What is important is not the truth or otherwise of his views.'

 Because they weren't armed they didn't cohere. They were right to blame the West. They had plenty of appeal, but power grows out of the barrel of a gun and only Assad was allowed to have them.

 'An effective and influential alliance of secular, moderate Islamist rebels never emerged. They blamed the West for failing to support them properly. But they were never able to come up with a coherent way to appeal to millions of Syrians locked in their own personal struggles to survive the war.'

 No, the US dismissed them as jihadists too, because the demands for removal were just rhetoric, and the US made no attempt to remove him.

 'The president's version of events was rejected and ridiculed by countries who demanded his removal, including the US, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia.'

 The truth, but discredited by Bowen as just one of the competing narratives, and one that he knows as a Western journalist doesn't fit things as well as his own insights, and the reality of Assad still being in power.

 'Opponents of the regime say that he worked from the beginning to create the stark choice between the regime and the jihadists, the reality he claimed existed from the start of the fighting.

His method, they say, was to target more moderate rebels and keep the pressure off the jihadists, first from al-Qaeda and now from the group that calls itself Islamic State.'

*[http://claysbeach.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/fake-adra-massacre-photos-expose-bloody.html]

Damascus under fire

 'Mohamed Al-Wazir of the NCSROF said that the Army of Islam’s rockets targeted solely military positions and that the regime reacted by shelling other parts of the city to incriminate the revolutionaries. People who examined the trajectory of the shelling support this view, saying that the capital came under fire from the Qasyun Mountains, known to be in regime hands.

 Alloush, who ordered the shelling of Damascus, is a controversial figure. Some members of the opposition describe him as a “fifth column,” noting that he was one of the first men to be released from prison by the regime after the outbreak of the revolution, having promised to cooperate with the authorities.

 Alloush later broke this promise, formed his own brigades, obtained funding from Arab sources and managed to increase the size of his forces until it numbered in the thousands. He has refrained from major engagements with regime forces, even when much smaller groups were regularly harassing them.

 Many opposition members note that Damascus, a city of five million people, is not necessarily pro-government, but is rather being held hostage by the regime.

 Damascus residents do not see the regime as a benefactor, but instead testify to the years of negligence and corruption that have defaced the city, and to the regime’s pro-Iranian policies that have virtually turned the city’s famous Umayyad Mosque into something akin to a Shiite shrine.'

The Streets Run Red

 Douma, ten miles north-east of central Damascus, where Assad appears to be trying to exterminate the local population with barrel bombs, to the extent that the streets run red with blood.

US warning as Hezbollah fighters launch assault on Syrian rebels

 Not warning about Hezbollah, but about any foreign fighters not on Assad's side. Why do they hate us so much? Not because the US are bombing Syria, but because they are ignoring the real threat to Syrians. The story reports the SOHR's repetition of Syrian state media claims about their advances, without giving the reports that the advance has been repulsed.

Isis forces Raqqa citizens to give blood

 'Mr Mohammed, 26, graduated from the Faculty of Law in Damascus before travelling to Raqqa when civil war broke out to become an activist. He said: “I went to Raqqa in 2011 to join the revolution against [Syrian President] Bashar-al-Assad. Me and my friends later founded the Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently campaign.” '

Hezbollah leads fight to retake Syria’s south

 'The south is one of the last remaining areas where mainstream, non-jihadi rebels fighting President Bashar Assad have a foothold.'

That's why Assad gets Hezbollah to fight them, not Jabhat al-Nusra in the North or ISIS in the East. They are murderous scum. The quote does underestimate how much the mainstream rebels are in almost all parts of Syria, and have support greater than their numbers. And the south is quite a foothold. And the Syrian government and its partners lie constantly about how succesful their military operations are, and who the targets are, so we'll have to wait and see if they can reduce any more of Syria to rubble which seems the only success they ever achieve.

Assad is overplaying a weak hand

 Assad is the only force that can take on ISIS, but he needs the Americans to save him from the moderate rebels, who don't exist, but Assad has made a mistake by not conciliating with them. Assad tells lies, but everyone but Patrick Cockburn will be taken in by them. When will he collapse under the weight of his own contradictions? And his mate Cockburn too.

The lies of a tyrant

 Not just part of the problem, but the fount of them.

 'Sticking one’s head in the sand and hoping the war on Isis will bring peace to Syria is a delusional approach. Syrian civilians are not helped when the west has no credible strategy to offer beyond air strikes on Isis and letting military data be communicated to the Assad regime. Nor are the Sunni constituencies that the coalition is supposed to rally against Isis ever going to be convinced of the efficiency of the strategy if Mr Assad, supported by Iran and Russia, is allowed to portray himself as part of a common fight. He is, as ever, part of the problem, not the solution.

 There were no words of empathy for a population that his troops have massacred, leaving whole cities, including Homs and Aleppo, in a state of ruin reminiscent of such 20th-century horrors as Guernica or Dresden. Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of Syrians have been detained and tortured, some to death, in Mr Assad’s dungeons. Behind the slick images of an interview in a presidential palace, a whole country is being methodically and ruthlessly sacrificed to the interests of the Assad dynasty.'

Assad Is Still Pounding Damascus Residential Districts

 "Everything Daesh is doing now, the (Syrian) regime has done before and is still doing," said Syrian activist Ahmed al-Ahmad, referring to the Islamic State group by its Arabic acronym. "But the world protects Assad and only cares about Daesh crimes."

What's a barrel bomb?

'Footage shows them being used in Syria, but President Assad denies civilians have been harmed.'

 And the BBC gives greater prominence to his lie than the truth. And Jeremy Bowen's response it to suggest inadequacy,

 "either callousness, an awkward attempt at humour, or a sign that Mr Assad has become so disconnected from what is happening that he feels overwhelmed,"

 while Jonathan Tepperman of the Washington Post was less forgiving, "Either Syria’s president is an extremely competent fabulist — in which case he’s merely a sociopath — or he actually believes his lies, in which case he’s something much more dangerous (like a delusional psychopath)."*

 Here** is 37 minutes of footage of Assad's forces dropping barrel bombs from last year.

*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-interviewed-bashar-al-assad-about-syrias-civil-war-hes-still-too-delusional-to-end-it/2015/01/30/571671b4-a77f-11e4-a2b2-776095f393b2_story.html]
**[https://web.archive.org/web/20140601214354/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R4UK3r5_Ow]

We need Arab boots on the ground to defeat ISIS

 I am doubtful that any of the other Arab countries' interventions would be fully in support of Syrian self-determination, but it is less the problem than the current Iranian intervention with American support.

 'Our region simply does not have the luxury of Obama’s indolence. For this reason, a full-scale but balanced Arab military mobilization is needed right now. This will include sending in a coalition of ground troops made up of Arab countries as well as funding and arming the Free Syrian Army (FSA), putting them in Jordan and unleashing them from there once ISIS is being elbowed out of the areas it currently controls in Syria and Iraq. Crucially, Assad must not be allowed to benefit from ISIS’s becoming weakened as a result of this offensive. After all, it was Assad who allowed, and directly helped, ISIS grow and become stronger until he could use the group as a crutch with which to hold the world ransom with two stark choices: me, or the deluge. In reality, ISIS and Assad are two sides of the same coin.

 A military offensive of this kind would be the most appropriate response to the horrifying murder of Kasasbeh by ISIS. It would also help break this group once and for all and at the same time block, through the support of the FSA, any gains made by a resurgent Assad or ally Iran as a result. Most importantly, though, it would help lay the ground for serious political changes in the region, especially in Syria, and set the stage for a climate free of Obama’s “strategic cowardice.” '

Red Lines

 'The Syrian Army is shelling a city of cold starving civilians.'



 'When asked about the resurgent interest in the region after ISIS’ consolidation, Moustafa was ambivalent. There was bitterness at having been ignored about the growing islamist threat and the recognition that routing al-Qaeda from Syria is now more difficult than it would have been in 2012, as well as appreciation that Syria continues to be in Americans’ minds.

 Moustafa dubbed the war, “Obama’s Rwanda,” underlining the failure of the Obama administration to act while Kalin made a much stronger comparison. Kalin says that any doubts she had about the necessity of this film were taken away when a Syrian woman asked her, “Have they forgotten us? Are we human?”, words she says echo that of her grandfather who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz.'
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150214032357/http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2015/02/10/award-winning-documentary-red-lines-depicts-democratization-attempts-in-syria/]

Samira, Razan,Wael, Nazem

 Yassin al Haj Saleh:

 'We have no millions to bribe to the kidnappers as the French, Italian and Spanish states did to Da’esh in order to secure the release of their respective citizens. We are also not affiliated with an influential sect, ‘minority’, or armed group. Second, there is no judicial system that we may resort to – locally, internationally, or any place in between. The United Nations does not care for the fate of individuals (or peoples, for that matter) and the International Criminal Court deals only with states.As activists and families of the kidnapped we find ourselves in an unfortunate position. On the one hand, we do not want to isolate the cause of these two women and two men from the general Syrian cause, which is a bitter struggle against a criminal Assadi-Iranian-Russian alliance. But on the other hand, it is impossible for us not to show special regard for our loved ones who are in the hands of a Da’esh-like organization that still denies its responsibility for the crime - a denial that only intensifies our concern now that more than 400 days have passed. What is more, we have not received help from the official opposition bodies, which did not even express solidarity.'

What is left unsaid about the siege on Ghouta

 'And for those who do not know – or know- what happened in eastern Ghouta:

 The Syrian people rebelled against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The latter had inherited power from his father after more than 40 years of rule by the Assad family. The revolution was modeled on the revolutions of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain which sought democracy and some of which went as far as to achieve it. The revolution was peaceful in its first months. During that time, thousands of martyrs fell; Hamza al-Khateeb, Ghyath Matar, Meshal al-Tammo, Maan Awdat and countless peaceful revolutionaries…With the failure of the international community to take a serious and effective stand to end this tyrannical rule, the people were left with no other choice but to resort to the right of self-defense.

 So many revolutionaries armed themselves and were able to liberate a lot of areas. And as the regime continued to wage its war on the people, some powerful and regional countries with interests in Syria managed to become key players in the course of the Syrian revolution. Many revolutionaries became beholden to the decisions of those countries when the latter started funding their military operations which were no longer possible without the support of those countries. In addition, other countries were backing the Assad regime, which had besieged many liberated areas, by sending logistical support and militias. And as the war went on and the Syrian people found themselves exposed to crimes against humanity on a daily basis, the most virulent and fundamentalist discourses gained in popularity among the people who had embraced the revolution when they saw themselves standing alone and alienated from everything they hear on the news regarding human rights, freedom and dignity.

 Some liberated areas were already being subjected to bombardment and daily death when, after the siege on Ghouta and other areas, they found themselves also dealing with a scarcity, and sometimes complete lack, of necessary basic supplies. None of the necessities of life were readily available anymore- neither water, nor food, nor medicine, nor fuel, nor electricity and not even air which the Assad regime had repeatedly filled with chemical gases.

 Who among those besieged would have believed that he would live through all those horrors? Thousands of martyrs, thousands of wounded, hundreds of thousands of starved people and thousands of deprived children…Life was crushing and no one heard their moans.

 Consider for a moment that one mother had to leave her two sons by a garbage container to be seen by passersby, another mother accidentally caused the death of her infant son when she ate soya bread because she could not find any alternatives and a crying mother was heard chanting “our soul and our blood, we sacrifice for you Bashar,” when she found herself unable to buy flour, which some charities sell at half the market price.'

Is it the beginning of the end for ISIS?

 Oh they stretch from Baghdad to Aleppo. Let's all shit our pants like Patrick Cockburn and demand an alliance with Assad.

 'A military source from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the IS-held city of Manbij said (under the condition of anonymity) that the number of IS militants has decreased in the city.

 “The IS group is even afraid of sending their gunmen on missions and patrols outside Manbij. Those militants, who are supposed to perform military missions and come back to their bases, mostly do not return, as in the recent cases in IS-held Amarna and Jazira checkpoints on the road to Jarablus.” '

Raqqa City between FSA control and ISIS occupation

 'The FSA took full control the city of Raqqa in early 2013 announcing the first liberation of a city center since the beginning of the Syrian revolution.

 Raqqa city lived a period of revolutionary prosperity and provided a wonderful model of revolutionary cultural manifestations which reflects the image of the future of Syria, the people of Raqqa lived this dream until the bats of ISIS came to rob their dreams and their future, kidnapping and killing, prosecuting and death threats against the media activists, and bombing the places of youth gatherings and fight FSA was not everything done by the organization, but ISIS also fought all the existing revolutionary factions until they dominated the whole city in early 2014, all activists and a lot of people began escaping and leaving the city, and ISIS has closed all youth gatherings in Raqqa which were ignored by the whole world.

 Today, the people of Raqqa became strangers in their city, and they are standing on the thresholds of their occupied city in waiting for something in a someday, hoping that the situation will change and they will live the dream again.'

I can see why some men would become radicalised

 When the situation in Syria seems complex, it is because the media has made no attempt to explain it, as in Ireland, where Muslims going to show their solidarity with the fight against Assad are lumped in with foreign fighters going to fight for ISIS.

 "My journey to Syria was on a mission. It wasn’t to a religious war of any sorts. But the mission in general was to topple the dictatorship. And our mission in particular was to help the Syrians themselves: train them how to protect themselves, how to maintain their weapons to topple the regime."

Britain has no idea who's in charge

 More obfuscation from Patrick Cockburn. The Americans are ignoring the Free Syrian Army in Northern Syria which has done most of the fighting against ISIS on the ground, while tolerating Assad who has done more than anyone to foster ISIS.

 'Speaking before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in January, retired US General James Mattis said that in the war against Isis, the US has a “strategy-free” stance. At one and the same time it is seeking to weaken and eliminate Isis, but is also trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad whose army is the main military opponent of Isis. The US’s supposed aim is to install moderate rebels instead of Isis and Assad, but these barely exist outside a few pockets.

 At senior levels, US leaders probably do perceive their dilemma in combating Isis while heading an alliance that excludes most of those fighting it on the ground but includes those who helped to foster the self-declared caliphate.'

American held by ISIS moved by suffering of Syrian people

 ' "Syrians are dying by the thousands and they're fighting just to talk about the rights we have," the humanitarian worker told The Daily Courier, her hometown paper in Prescott, Arizona, in 2013. "For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal."

 She described helping reunite a man with a 6-year-old relative after their refugee camp was bombed.

 "This story is not rare in Syria," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "This is the reality for Syrians two and a half years on. When Syrians hear I'm an American, they ask, 'Where is the world?' All I can do is cry with them, because I don't know." '

Newsnight

 Nicholas Burns fills in some of the gaps left by Cockburn and Frum last night. But still it is a former US administration official we hear from, reinforcing the perception that Syria is all about what the US does, not about the killing Assad and his allies are carrying out. If the rebels were really Western backed, we would see representatives of the Syrian rebels of the news putting their case, rather than the victims of this war remaining invisible.

 "I think that everything ISIS has done, against Japan, against Jordan, against the United States, against the Arab countries; has deepened the anger and revulsion of people round the world.

 I think Bashar al-Assad is part of the problem. He is guilty of massive human rights violations against the Sunni population in Syria. He's the one who destroyed Aleppo. He's the one who allowed the climate to be created where Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS could be born, could grow, and could succeed unfortunately. I don't think Assad's the answer.

 Most importantly, greater Western/NATO support to the moderate Syrian militia, who can fight ISIS on the ground inside Syria. That's the first step."

Kayla Jean Muller

 "I am in solidarity with the Syrian people. I reject the brutality and killing that the Syrian authorities are committing against the Syrian people, because silence is participation in this crime. I declare my participation in the Syrian sit-in on YouTube."

 When the Leftists who have abandoned Syria talk about ISIS, they never mention what took the hostages ISIS have killed to Syria, because they all went to show support for the revolution against Bashar al-Assad, and were kidnapped by ISIS, which has no interest in that revolution, thus blowing away the narrative that the Syrian rebels and ISIS are the same.

Amy sends another Valentine to Bashar

 'So why do I say this is pro-Assad propaganda? Because according to a more detailed report from EAWorldView, yesterday was one of Assad's bloodiest. 130 people were killed by the Assad regime while 6 may have been were killed by the rebel rockets Amy chose to highlight. This is typical of Democracy Now's shameful reporting on Syria and why I say "even-handed" Amy's reports on Syria are Valentines to Bashar. As Desmond Tutu famously said "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." '

My people, under the bombs

 'The bombing doesn’t stop until sunset. The government jets target everything. Apartment blocks, mosques, schools, even a hospital. The assault is in reprisal for a major rebel attack that left 10 dead in the capital the day before. As I have taken to doing in such cases, I head down to the makeshift clinic, where I witness the most awful scenes you could imagine.'

The most important thing in the Middle East

 'The most alarming thing about Iran's management and framing of the Syria conflict is that it's actually worked. As Smyth writes, the "battlefield successes" of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra "have effectively caused the Iranian and Assad messaging strategy to appear more like a self-fulfilling prophecy than an advanced operation to alter narratives about the rebels."

 And the secular rebels who Iran and its allies smeared as "takfiris" are barely holding onto what little territory they still control. The war is being fought along Iran's preferred sectarian fault-line, with Sunni extremists fighting a network of Shi'ite religious warriors largely organized from Tehran.

 The US has even "de-conflicted" with the Syrian and Iranian air forces in Iraq and Syria. That isn't tantamount to an endorsement of the Iranian narrative of the war, but it is a sign of how US policy has conformed to the conditions that Iran and Assad have imposed on the conflict.'

Newsnight

 Patrick Cockburn was talking rubbish on Newsnight last night.

 "The Islamic State is very powerful, it stretches from the border of Iran almost to the Mediterranean."[15m38s]

 "They are conscripting there, so this means their armies are getting stronger and stronger. They are conscripting from every family, so they will be able to put very large armies into the field."[15m50s]

 Raising a conscript army from a population you are terrorising does not make you strong. Do you think those frightened young men would be worth anything in a real fight?

 "The main opposition to the Islamic State in Syria is the Syrian Army and Assad. No Syrian Army, no Assad, then ISIS, the Islamic State, have a good chance of taking over the whole of Syria. So there's no-one else."[16m15s]

 We see openly what was once concealed, Cockburn thinks we should support Assad. When it's been suggested that Cockburn was an Assad apologist for the last two years, the answer has come back, no, that's just like the claim that those who opposed the Iraq war were supporters of Saddam Hussein. No, it isn't, because opposing a war for régime change is not the same as backing a dictator against a revolution, as Cockburn is doing. No mention of the rebel forces that have actually been fighting against ISIS while Assad has been doing deals with him. No mention of how those being barrel bombed, how the tens of thousands being tortured to death in Assad's prisons are supposed to reach an accommodation with him.



 "The Islamic State, which is slaughtering tens of thousands of people," I think you're talking about Assad mate.

 The answer to this is not an American invasion, but to give the actual rebels the weapons necessary to take on Assad and ISIS. A job that would have been much simpler in 2012, when there was no ISIS. But still, the approach of doing nothing doesn't mean that America is protected from instability in the Middle East, but that if the constructive solutions are spurned, then the more destructive solutions are the only ones on the table. And so Newsnight get to oppose Patrick Cockburn David Frum, the man who invented the term axis of evil to describe the enemies of America's neoconservatives. He doesn't argue to help the Syrian rebels, but to stay out of the fight against ISIS because that would strengthen Iran and Assad, and Iran is the main enemy in the Middle East. If the alternatives for Syrians are to be abandoned to Assad or treated as a pawn against the Iranians, it is no sort of a choice at all, though many will see the Frum position as slightly preferable, given that Iran has taken over large parts of Syria and assisted with Assad's genocide. But to argue against deals with Assad does not have to be to support the neo-conservatives, there is a better way.

 Also there is apparent news that Nancy Soderberg supports doing a deal with Assad*, and the former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia exploding the myth that the Saudis are running ISIS.**

*Kirsty Wark: "We spoke earlier to Nancy Soderberg earlier, who said, actually what you have to do is bite the bullet, you have to engage with Assad, Assad is the way we will deal with IS in Syria."[14m38s]
**Sir John Jenkins, "I think the claim that Saudi has been responsible for the rise of Daesh, personally, is absolutely nonsense." [11m25s]

If Saudis aren't fuelling the militant inferno, who is?

 Bashar al-Assad was buying all their oil, but Robert Fisk supports Assad, so he's just going to ignore that, in favour of the testimony of the spooks that got Iraq wrong because they couldn't tell one Muslim from another, and the "I was the 20th hijacker, until I got high" bloke from al-Qaida.

 Like many vile dictatorships, Saudi Arabia has much more use for democracy as a tool to undermine its enemies than it is at employing it at home.

 'When the international community finally decided to launch an international coalition against terrorism, Saudi Arabia once more emphasized that defeating ISIS must be linked to strengthening the forces of moderation, represented by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as well as other moderate rebel factions.'
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150629000420/http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341171]

Angelina Jolie and the Left

 'Given that so many people around the world admired Angelina Jolie for this work, maybe the Left should consider how those people are likely to view the despicable track record of the Left as the world has watched more than 200 thousand people be murdered and millions made refugees by their own government.

 "I told them that since I’ve arrived here, all I’ve seen on CNN or NBC was news about the Malaysian airplane over and over. With all due respect for it, I think there are much more important things going on in the world – like Assad’s using chemical weapons dozens of times in limited doses during the past few weeks, barrel bombs destroying what’s left of Aleppo and Syria, or how about how Bashar fulfilled his promise that he made in the middle of 2011 and turned Syria into a new Afghanistan, or how Hizballah and Al-Qaeda are getting more experienced and stronger, while both of them are fighting side by side against the free Syrian army, above and below the radar."

 - Syrian refugee mhamou on State Department interview 14 April 2014'

'Musician of the Syrian Revolution' Debuts at Carnegie Hall

 'Jandali remains focused on using his music to raise awareness and, he hopes, help bring down the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 “You know, the question is why a Syrian symphony at this time, where people are in need of medicine, food, shelter,” he said. “And I’m envisioning someone a hundred years from today, looking back, saying, 'What did the Syrian people do during their revolution? Ah, here’s a Syrian symphony!' Similar to what Shostakovich did, for example, in his Leningrad Symphony. So what I’m trying to do is preserve and present my culture that is being destroyed today.” '

Syrian government forces kill hundreds of civilians

 At least the Independent is mentioning Assad's war on Syria, but Britain was never going to go to war in 2013.

 'Bombings and chemical attacks like the ones that almost led Britain to war in 2013.'

 Assad is fighting ISIS as little as possible, and the groups actually fighting him are not separate from the anti-government sentiment.

 'President Assad’s forces are fighting a civil war on several fronts – against Isis, other Islamist militias, secular rebel groups and to quash the anti-government sentiment that started in the 2011 Arab Spring.'

 Assad's attacks aren't against the majority of foreign fighters fighting on his side of the conflict.

 'At least 100 fighters, the presumed target of the regime's attacks, were killed in the same strikes, including rebels, Islamists and foreign militants on both sides of the conflict.'

 Nobody but Assad is using barrel bombs.

 'The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is calling on the Security Council to issue another resolution condemning al-Assad’s regime for its “indiscriminate bombing” and to order all parties in Syria to stop using barrels bombs.'

 ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are not the same thing, the latter fights Assad.

 'The extremist group Islamic State and al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, were responsible for systematic and widespread violations including targeting civilians, kidnappings, and executions.'

Regime security forces executed 60 detainees in rural Damascus yesterday

 Some days they do this. The catastrophe in Syria isn't about what America does, it's about what Assad is doing. It isn't right that the Jordanians killed a couple of prisoners in revenge for their pilot, but it isn't like they're doing it all the time. As all the Western correspondents failed to predict, Jordanian people have turned against ISIS now they know their pilot has been murdered. ISIS aren't criminal masterminds who would spirit away any weapons given to the Free Syrian Army to fight them and Assad.

Qatari FM: Assad is Root Cause Syria’s Problem

 'Attiyah stresses that people of the region do not sympathize with ISIS or its extremist views, but they are trying to remind everyone of the root cause of the problem, namely the Assad regime’s brutal policies. “The killing of over 300,000 people and the indiscriminate barrel bombing of women, children and the elderly underscores the brutality of this regime." '

Genghis Khan-style cruelty of Isis

 Robert Fisk had always decided that Assad was a moderate and his enemies were more horrible. A liar who was claiming only on Thursday, 'Soon, no doubt, we can expect Isis to have that other necessary accoutrement of modern statehood: an airline. Then it only has to wait for the West to identify the "moderates" in the Islamic State - and I suppose we’ll all be able to go and chat to Caliph al-Baghdadi himself.' This apologist for Assad is a reporter no more.

 'There will be ruthless leaders aplenty – Bashar al-Assad of Syria comes to mind, now that we have decided that his enemies are even more horrible than him – who will benefit from the cruelty of the last few hours.

 Our intolerance of the autocrats of the Middle East – of the al-Sissis and al-Assads, of the Hashemite monarchy, of the quivering princes of the Gulf, even of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei – is already mutating in the face of the Caliphate. All must surely become our "moderates" again, those who wish to ‘unite against terror’ now that we gaze upon the fires of hell in Raqaa and Mosul.'

Syrian rebels hope for swap deal

 It should be possible to tell the difference between the actual Syrian rebels, and the incompetent barbarians of ISIS who burn prisoners to death when they don't have a female suicide bomber released on their terms. The Western media narrative has been to present ISIS, Assad and the Russians as strategic masterminds, while the suffering Syrian people are a clueless bunch of farmers and pharmacists who can't have nice things. And their accounts can't be verified, however consistent they've been for the last four years.

 ' "We are questioning him on how Iranians operate in Syria. Our priority right now is a swap (of him) for our prisoners. We have so many women in government prisons and we want to swap him for (some of) them."
Reuters could not independently verify the account.

 The opposition has consistently demanded the release of thousands of women they say have been jailed for involvement in anti-government activism since March 2011, when the war began as peaceful street protests.'

Syria blames Lebanese 'manipulation' for currency slump

 "The Syrian Pound’s weakness will show when it loses all elements of power and stability."

Regime Barrel Bombs Pound Syrian Civilians

 "It is a terror and an anti-civilian tool. Part of Assad’s strategy is to make life as miserable as possible for the civilians living in opposition-held areas. It’s designed to kill many and terrify the rest so they will flee and gradually depopulate the area, to make it harder for the rebels to hang on."

Syria and the left

 Yassin Al Haj Saleh:

 "I think this high-politics, Western-centered worldview is better suited for the right and the ultra-right fascists.What prevents them from seeing the victims of Bashar, when they see perfectly well ordinary people in Kobanê? Why wasn’t there the slightest interest in the slaughter of 700 people at the hands of ISIS thugs themselves in Deir Ezzor last August? One is forced to ask: Do victims have different values based on who their murderers are? Why, as the regime is bombing many regions in the country every day, killing dozens of people every day, are the leftists in the West as silent as the rightists?

 Of course, these remarks are not meant to deny the existence of a small number of courageous dissident Western leftists who saved the moral and political dignity of the left in the United States and the West at large."

Inside Syria’s Jails

 'Torture was routine. Anyone who has been detained in Mr. Assad’s prisons will know these details. There are about 40 documented techniques, including suspending prisoners by their arms from the ceiling, electric shocks, beatings, cigarette burns and pulling nails. The screams of the tortured were unbearable; I nearly lost my mind in there.

 More than 60 men were held in a neighboring cell. Regardless of the charge, the guards called us all terrorists and beat everyone. The number of detainees went down as some died, and up again as more were brought in. Some were forced to sleep next to corpses before the dead were disposed of. Among the living, our exhausted bodies became infested with lice; we got rashes and skin infections.

 I was fortunate not to be harmed physically, unlike a doctor held with me who was falsely accused of kidnapping a Syrian Army soldier. They hung her from her hair instead of her wrists, and kept dousing her body with cold water and shocking her with electricity until she lost consciousness for days at a time.'

The Left's shill for Obama's red-line con

 'Remember the words of that old general that was one of Smiley's People in the John Le Carre novel by the same name, "Enemies I do not fear, Villem. But friends I fear greatly" The truth is air strikes against Assad for using "a whole bunch of chemical weapons" was never in the offing. It was only put out there, together with the 16 bullets, so that Obama could be in the position of pulling the rug out from under at the critical moment. All that was necessary was for Obama to throw the decision to Congress so that the Left could give him cover and, in fact, take credit for, this Sting, [which 95% of the Left counted a great victory they had won!!??]

 Get the Net: Revolutions cannot be defeated by military might but they can be defeated by betrayal and back stabbing.'

Syria and the Left

 Yassin Al Haj Saleh:

 "I am afraid that it is too late for the leftists in the West to express any solidarity with the Syrians in their extremely hard struggle. What I always found astonishing in this regard is that mainstream Western leftists know almost nothing about Syria, its society, its regime, its people, its political economy, its contemporary history. Rarely have I found a useful piece of information or a genuinely creative idea in their analyses. My impression about this curious situation is that they simply do not see us; it is not about us at all. Syria is only an additional occasion for their old anti-imperialist tirades, never the living subject of the debate.

 So they do not really need to know about us. For them the country is only a black box about which you do not have to learn its internal structure and dynamics; actually it has no internal structure and dynamics according to their approach, one that is at the same time Western-centered and high-politics centered.

 The problem is that their narrow anti-imperialist worldview only sees Obama, Putin, Holland, Erdoğan, Khamenei, Qatari Emir Hamad, Saudi King Abdullah, Hassan Nasrallah, and Bashar al-Assad. Possibly they see also Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. We, rank-and-file Syrians, refugees, women, students, intellectuals, human rights activists, political prisoners … do not exist.

 I think this high-politics, Western-centered worldview is better suited for the right and the ultra-right fascists. But honestly I’ve failed to discern who is right and who is left in the West from a leftist Syrian point of view. And I tend to think that these are the poisonous effects of the Soviet experience, fascist in its own way. Many Western leftists are the orphans of the late father, the USSR."

U.S. intervention is worsening Syria's conflict

 ' “We did not get any weapons from the U.S. to fight the regime for the last three years – only now do U.S. weapons arrive for fighting Daesh,” FSA fighter Omar Waleed told The Guardian.

 The Free Syrian Army's strength has diminished significantly as the war drags on. In addition to battling other rebel and extremist groups for control and influence over Syrian territory, the FSA has also had to fight for its dwindling reputation, amid mistrust that foreign support has turned its members into foreign agents, compromising their credibility among Syrians.

 In September 2014, the remnants of its central command refused to join a coalition with the U.S.-backed al-Hazzem Movement to fight against the Islamic State on the ground, although the group has accepted weapons and training from the U.S. to fight on their own. "If they want to see the FSA on their side, they should give assurances on toppling the Assad regime, and on a plan that includes revolutionary principles." '

The Free Syrian Army: 4,000 or 60,000?

 'A Wall Street Journal report said American military support for the Syrian opposition had regressed, and that the U.S. only gave the equivalent of 16 bullets a month per fighter.

 Despite the restraints levied against it, the FSA is on the verge of consolidating its control of southern Syria - in Daraa and its surroundings - even though many of the fighters have not received salaries in months.

 Salim Idriss, minister of defense in the opposition government, said the opposition had begun to unite factions to establish a united army that will include 60,000 fighters. Idriss further hypothesized that the world will realize that its only option to confront the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is to topple the Syrian regime and support the moderate opposition which represents all Syrian people of different religions, sects and tribes.'

Removal of Assad first

 'The U.S. Senator added that the situation in Syria is very complex because the plan of arming and training the moderate rebels includes only a few hundred fighters, who bear the responsibility of fighting the Islamic state, while they fight the Syrian regime’s army, and the allied Shiite militias all at the same time.

 He stressed that the United States should provide qualitative weapons to the moderate opposition forces to be able to change balance of the battle on the ground, and that it should seriously work to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.'

Purposed targeting of civilians

 'SNHR documented the death of 883 civilians by government forces, including 207 children (seven children a day), no less than 54 women, and no less than 64 victims who were tortured to death (three deaths under torture a day).

 The percent of children and women victims reached 30%, which is a clear indication of the purposed targeting of civilians by governmental forces.'

Dateline London 31/01/2015

 Mina al-Oraibi owns Owen Jones from the off. She doesn't have time at the end to correct everything he says, but takes on many of his simplifications.

 It might be easier for Leftists to understand that Owen Jones and the Daily Mail are the same side of the coin when it comes to blaming the Saudis for Islamic radicalism by looking at an example from the latter.*

 He admits Mina Al-Oraibi's first point, and then tries to claim it was what he was saying anyway. Not true. He's trying to claim that al-Qaida is just Western oriented, she points out that since the Gulf War in 1991 al-Qaida has been just as opposed to the Saudis, he sidesteps this by talking about their Western target list. Next false claim is that ISIS has focused on overthrowing Arab régimes, when they have foregone the struggle of the rest of the Syrian people against Assad to build up their own state in the areas that the actual rebels liberated from Assad. Someone who has gone to fight Assad isn't going to launch terror attacks in the UK, but Owen Jones muddles them all up as "foreign fighters", just as the Daily Mail would. His talk of "many of these" (presumably trying to avoid the use of the word terrorist, which would make him sound as right-wing as he is), obscures all the differences between those fighting Assad and those who don't, those fighting for a secular or a moderate Islamic state are just all labelled as al-Qaida, just as those who fought the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were.

 A tradition the Americans have been happy to continue in Syria, which is why if Hillary Clinton wasn't happy with Qatar over so-called anti-terrorist co-operation, it was because the latter wanted to support the fight to free Syria from Assad, largely through the secular Free Syrian Army, while the Americans wanted to stop the FSA getting the anti-aircraft weapons they needed to stop Assad's bombing, because they were more scared of Islamic extremists than they desired to stop the genocide.

 Incidentally, there was a smear campaign** in the American media against Qatar financed by the United Arab Emirates. The throwing in of the property ownership of Qataris in the UK sounds a lot like complaints that Jewish capitalists are doing as down, and is unpleasant, and seem to have little to do with Qatari policy vis-a-vis ISIS.

 The basic lie is that Gulf funding for ISIS is the problem, falls down when we consider that the autocratic régimes and the jihadis may be religiously similar, but are politically opposed, and so while they may have individual donors, mixing that up with the states' policies is an error. It also falls down because states' internal policies differ from their foreign policy needs, which is why the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have funded the Free Syrain Army when the US has allowed them to, because that would get rid of the source of instability in the region Assad, and the client of their rival Iran, which ISIS is not threatening to do, Thirdly it ignores that Assad's genocide is the primary cause for the rise of ISIS in Syria, followed by the lack of support for the FSA as it has battled to keep those areas free from ISIS. And the funding for Assad hasn't been the West, though the West has been happy to see him crush the country for four years while they do nothing but issue condemnations; it is the Russians who have given him billions of dollars of weaponry, the Iranians that have provided tens of thousands of foreign fighters, without which Assad would be gone, Syria would be free, and there would be no ISIS. Owen Jones is kicking sand in our faces to obscure the real problem, just as the Daily Mail would.

 Owen Jones: "Originally the difference between ISIS and al-Qaida, of course, is that al-Qaida focused on Western targets, while ISIS, their position was..."

 Mina Al-Oraibi: "That's not true. They focused on Pakistan, on Saudi Arabia, on Iraq. Their propaganda was different. They focused in their speeches about the West."

 Owen Jones: "Absolutely. They have an extensive target list across the Western world, and that, of course, wasn't originally the case with ISIS. Actually, rather than with al-Qaida, have these great spectacular attacks, what we will do is keep land, we will retain land, and expand and focus on the Arab régimes. And, of course now, given the foreign fighters, and so on, which are returning in many cases, it has become far more of a domestic problem; but one of the issues which the West simply has not come to terms with is their relationship with various Arab dictatorships, where internally, obviously a huge amount of funding and ideological support for many of these, not just ISIS, but Jabhat al-Nusra..."

 Gavin Esler: "The realpolitik means that strongmen leaders are the ones the West supports."

 Owen Jones: "But that doesn't mean allowing the continued supply of funding, and ideological export, I mean take Saudi Arabia , for example, I mean take Qatar, as Hillary Clinton herself pointed out, has the worst record of co-operation with Western counter-terrorism in the whole of the Middle East. Where they've failed, where Kuwait, they have these huge charities, so-called, which are perfectly legal, exporting funds to various extremist groups in Syria and elsewhere. So, the problem is, look at Qatar for example. In Britain, last week, they just got this huge new slice of Canary Wharf, they own the Shard, the own a huge chunk of the London stock exchange, and Sainsbury's, yet internally there are huge problems with Qatar, in terms of links between very prominent and very wealthy individuals within Qatar, and these extremist groups, and the West simply turns a blind eye, because they are obviously very convenient allies in the Middle East."

 Mina Al-Oraibi: "It's a huge tangled web that Dateline doesn't have enough time for. However, I will say this: I think there are too many simplifications made, about what is happening in the region, about who supports who, partly because the alliances keep shifting. What we've seen happening in the region, not only from the revolutions of the last four years or so, but even pre-dating that to the Iraq war, and pre-dating that to Afghanistan. You've had different groups, who are non-state actors, who are actually very convenient to fund and give arms for, to push through a strategic goal, and then those arms, those funds, go to different groups, and you lose the thread. That's what has happened with different groups fighting in the region, and that's why it's so scary. States in the region have lost the monopoly over arms, and that continues to cause huge problems, but ISIS is different. ISIS really does represent a threat to the people, and the governments of these countries. I think it's very indicative, we go back to the coalition and why there was a coalition against ISIS, again their first meeting was in Saudi Arabia. It was Saudi Arabia's way of saying, this clearly is a threat to us, as it is to the West. And we see the attacks that ISIS is carrying out, on citizens and people, of the Middle East, of Arabs, and other ethnicities, much greater , for example, than the threat they pose to the West, and outside of the region. And, at the end of the day, there are domestic issues we have to deal with, there are issues of funding, but whether we look at Kuwait for example, there are people the UN Security Council has named, and Kuwait itself has penalised. I think it's also unfair, if we talk about religious leaders, there have been everybody from [unclear] to Saudi scholars, speaking against ISIS. It doesn't get translated into English, that's often the problem."

*[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331789/Sharia-lessons-pupils-aged-BBC-uncovers-weekend-schools.html]
**[https://web.archive.org/web/20140928131733/http://www.albawaba.com/news/qatar-lobbying-campaign-607827]

How books can defeat Isis

 'The outside world may have been astonished by the explosive rise of Isis, but Iraqi politicians had been warning me for several years that, if the war in Syria went on, it would destabilise Iraq and lead to the full-scale resumption of the Sunni-Shia civil war.'

 The Free Syrian Army haven't just warned about the rise of ISIS, they've been fighting against them for several years, in a struggle Patrick Cockburn has deliberately ignored. It isn't war as an abstract that has enabled their spread, but Assad's war on Sunni Muslims and the abandonment of those Syrians resisting his war that has given ISIS the space the thrive and has inflamed sectarian differences.

 Talking about the Independent, Robert Fisk* is far off into the world of fantasy. 'Soon, no doubt, we can expect Isis to have that other necessary accoutrement of modern statehood: an airline. Then it only has to wait for the West to identify the ‘moderates’ in the Islamic State - and I suppose we’ll all be able to go and chat to Caliph al-Baghdadi himself.'
*[https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/isis-hostage-crisis-the-prisoner-swap-has-only-one-purpose-for-the-militants-recognition-its-islamic-state-exists-and-that-foreign-nations-acknowledge-its-power-10012073.html]

Hypocrite world

 'A message from the activists of the #Kafranbel area of Idlib province, who took part in an anti government demonstration calling for freedom and the toppling of regime.'