War for Decades to Come?

 

 Amy Goodman asks Patrick Cockburn about Idrees Ahmad's criticism and receives waffle:

 AMY GOODMAN: 'Patrick, last month The Daily Beast featured an article criticizing your Syria reporting. The author, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad alleges you discount any Syrian nationalist opposition to the al-Assad regime and that your position is, "Bashar al-Assad is at war with jihadi terrorism; the West has erred in supporting his opponents; and to support the opposition is to support ISIS." Ahmad goes on to say, "For Cockburn, the situation in Syria is stark: you are with the regime or you are with the terrorists. He is an enthusiast for the war on terror—Bashar al-Assad’s war on terror. He criticizes the U.S. for excluding from its anti-ISIS coalition 'almost all those actually fighting ISIS, including Iran, the Syrian army, the Syrian Kurds and the Shia militias in Iraq.'" Ahmad later accuses you of "turning a blind eye to the regime’s ongoing slaughter of civilians." He says, "He is helped in this by the obtrusive barbarism of ISIS, which uses spectacle in the place of scale to force media attention. ISIS has been a godsend for the regime. It has helped divert attention from its crimes — and regime-friendly journalists have obliged in the deflection." Patrick Cockburn, your response?'

 PATRICK COCKBURN: 'Oh, I get a lot of this. Anybody who’s gonna report the Syrian civil war, or the Iraqi civil war is going to be accused by one side or the other of being partisan. And what happens in the Middle East has always happened, but is happening worse now, is when you analyze something and you say this is the situation, that I don’t think Assad is going to go down, both sides are incredibly brutal in this Civil War, then people think you’re justifying it. They mistake analysis for justification. I have had that, really, since 2011. I remember a rather nice Syrian I knew in Lebanon. I had just been in Syria and I had reported that Assad, for various reasons, was not going to collapse as a lot of media was saying. And as I came back into Syria, I switched on my telephone and there was the same guy shouting at me, shouting, shame on The Independent, shame on you. It was just that I had reported the situation as I saw it. Objectively. But he sort of wished that reality was different, and that’s why he was shouting at me. And this is the same sort of stuff. I can understand the passions involved, that both sides commit appalling atrocities using maximum violence, whatever they have against civilians. This is true of the Assad government dropping barrel bombs on civilians. It’s true of the Islamic State; 500, 600 members of another tribe in Syria were massacred. So I can understand how people feel like that. It’s part of the war, so I get attacked like that. I’m sure I will be attacked again. And there’s nothing much I can really do about that.'

The cleansing of Zabadani

 ' “The displacement of the people of Zabadani to Madaya means that they will be confined to a narrow and very densely populated geographic area already populated by a large number of displaced civilians and will be again besieged in an area which is being continuously targeted with barrel bombs by Assad’s warplanes and with heavy artillery bombardment by regime ground forces. The area is also surrounded by regime checkpoints where regime troops are already hunting civilians (men, women and children) from Zabadani, as well as warning them to prepare for a massacre and long-term siege. These threats against the people of Zabadani are the start of the regime’s and its accomplices’ planned ‘demographic change’ which we have warned repeatedly of. This threat to the people is not limited to Sunni Muslims but also includes the town’s Christian and other population, with all the town’s people being driven out in order to ‘cleanse’ the area and prepare for it to be resettled by foreign occupiers.”

 Beyond immediate military value, forced population transfers give rise to the fear that there’s a plan to divide Syria on sectarian lines, to redraw the borders with Alawites and Shia, Sunnis and Kurds all taking their own sections of the country. Far from being a prelude to peace, such a plan would precipitate an ethnic cleansing on a scale not yet seen in the country. Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious groups do not fit neatly into geographical areas and are spread across all regions. Even in the coastal region, the regime’s Alawite stronghold and presumably a key part of any future Assadist state, the two main cities – Lattakia and Tartous- contain major Sunni populations.

 Zabadani’s people once took to the streets chanting the anti-sectarian revolutionary slogan “The Syrian People are One”. Now they are being expelled from their homes for the sake of what looks like an Iranian-sectarian partition.'

A Syrian Photographer Shows His Country's Destruction

 'Aleppo has "completely changed," he says. "The city's neighborhoods are devastated because of daily shelling and the use of barrel bombs by the Assad regime." Amid the horror of the war, Basha also focused on the White Helmets, a group of volunteer rescuers who tunnel into bombed-out buildings to save the people trapped inside. He also turned his lens to children, who "have lost all kinds of fun and happiness in childhood" but still have "big dreams after the end of the war." '

Refugee crisis grows

 'Here’s one factoid from that most recent horror in Austria to contemplate: Some of the dead carried Syrian travel documents. They were fleeing the violence and the turmoil, which our own nation and the international community have done nothing to curtail — not after President Obama’s “red line,” not after the proof of sarin gas attacks, not after pleas by rebels for something more lethal than meals-ready-to-eat.

 European governments are arresting the human traffickers who prey off the fear and the misery of these refugees. But they cannot stop this tide. Only regime change in Syria can do that — but our own nation and the world seem to have given up on that.'

Dream On

 From a Syrian on Facebook today:

 "What we need now is only 20-30 anti-aircraft missiles, and I can assure you that we can force a no-fly zone over all Syria."

Assad Puts Blame on Israel in TV Interview

 Two things we might want to note about this. Firstly, the Assad régime and its friends in Russia and Iran are the main source of the conspiracy theories that Israel is behind the Syrian rebels. When you see the same being propagated by conspiracy theorists or self-styled leftists, it's not some counter-narrative to imperialism, but a concoction of the imperialism that is destroying Syria.

 Secondly, when Assad says things will go back to the way they were, he isn't going to accept any partition of the country, but will kill every Syrian if he gets the chance in the vain attempt to hold onto the whole country.

 'Today, the main Israeli tool that is more important than that aggression are the terrorists in Syria, meaning that what they do is much more dangerous than what Israel does from time to time to support them. They are the basis of the problem.

 So, if we want to confront Israel, first we have to face its tools within Syria. You cannot confront an external enemy when you have an internal enemy. This matter must be resolved within Syria, and then things will be back to the way they were, and no-one would dare act against Syria; not Israel nor anyone else.'

Syrians in Turkey keep revolution alive

 'The decisive event for the FSA brigade's relationship with IS came in June 2013, when the Islamist group shot their commander, Kamal Hamami, also known as Abu Basir, the man who had so readily welcomed Leila into the brigade.

 "It was a turning point in the history of the revolution. Before that we couldn't see that IS was a serious threat to the Syrian revolution. After this we took a decision to fight them."
Aboud, Mustafa and Leila reminisce together about the early days of the revolution - the hope and euphoria. That doesn't mean the future Syria they envision the same. Mustafa is a committed Salafist, while Aboud is clear that he wants a secular state. But there is much they all share.

 "Mustafa and I have had very different points of view," Leila says. "But in the end we don't want all of Syria to think the same way. This is the point of the revolution. I can have my opinion and he can have his. If you're a socialist, a liberalist, an Islamist, it's okay so long as you're not hurting anybody. That's my hope since the beginning and still is now. For everyone to have the right to express their views."

 "If you want to get back on track to fight for what we initially fight for, you have to take away IS," Leila says. "It's as simple as that. We haven't forgotten what we are fighting for. We cannot forget. But let's be honest. We cannot fight Assad only." '

 Maybe Robert Fisk should talk to these people, instead of writing bullshit like, 'We can – we must – spend far more time investigating the links between Isis and their Islamist and rebel friends (Nusrah, Jaish al-Islam, even the near-non-existent Free Syria Army) and the Saudis and Qataris and Turks, and indeed the degree to which US weapons have been sent across the border of Syria almost directly into Isis hands.'
[http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/isis-blinds-journalists-with-its-barbarity-but-we-must-continue-to-report-10468294.html]

Faction Guide of the Syrian war

 'Many Syrian soldiers deserted to join the FSA. By June 2013, the estimated number of soldiers who had defected to the FSA was about 40,000, but the manpower increased to 80,000 because many civilians also decided to pick up arms and join the FSA. Later in late 2013 many fighters defected FSA to join other opposition armed groups and Jihadist groups for ideological and military reasons which decreased the manpower of the FSA to 45,000 fighters.

 FSA operates throughout Syria, both in urban areas and in the suburbs, they are present in the northwest (Idlib, Aleppo), the central region (Hama, and Rastan), in the coast (around Latakia suburbs) and in the south (Daraa and Houran). They get external support from MOC [Military Operation Co-operation] it’s a military operation room that’s was created in 2013 by “Friends of Syria” countries like USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan. The objective of this military operation room is to train the Syrian opposition fighters and to support them constantly in their fronts. This operation room is headquartered in Amman, Jordan.'

 Three things might be added. Many of those who defected at the end of 2013 did so because, the world, specifically President Obama, promised to do something if Assad used chemical weapons, and did nothing when he did exactly that. It's a lie, when those like Patrick Cockburn tell us the FSA doesn't exist. The"Friends of Syria" give a minimal amount of support to the FSA (though not in the deluded imagination of many leftists, al-Qaida or ISIS), in order to be able to restrict its advances:

 'A local translator of US-rebel talks is claiming that the Americans have put restrictions on the rebel offensive to take Daraa city, near the Jordanian border in southern Syria.

The translator, who has been reliable in the past, says three conditions have been set on the Southern Front rebel coalition: 1) it cannot move in the al-Mahata area of Daraa; 2) it cannot advance north to the key town of Sasa; 3) rebels cannot link up to units in the West Ghouta area near Damascus.

Daraa, where the uprising against the Assad regime began in March 2011, has been split between the rebels and Syrian military for years.

The translator did not give a reason for the restrictions, but other EA sources have said that the Americans fear a sudden collapse of Assad forces — and a “vacuum” in power — if the rebels advance through Daraa city and province.'
[http://eaworldview.com/2015/08/syria-daily-regime-carries-out-another-mass-killing-in-douma/]



Note 13/5/25, original link broken.

Sectarian Re-Engineering Followed by Cease-Fire

 I think this is overly pessimistic. What remains of the Assadist ideology besides the death cult and fear of torture if you step out of line, is the idea that is a unifying factor that pulls all Syrians together. Once areas of Syria are accepted as permanently lost, the mask covering its reduction to an instrument to keep Assad in place and Iranian interests protected falls away even further (thus I also have my doubts about the Iranian ability to dump the Assads, but I might be proved wrong on that). Assad and Iran have lost ground when they had the legitimacy of sovereignty and the opposition did not, that isn't likely to get better for them if they lower their ambitions to holding what they have, in fact is likely to convince those trapped under the régime that its future is limited.

 So rather than the opposition having no strategy, its commitment to resist partition has become easier to keep to with recent advances. There was distrust around the negotiations over Zabadani, but it quickly became obvious that Ahrar al-Sham weren't backing the Iranian proposal. Confusion at first may have led other groups to thinking they were selling out Zabadani, which may have been what led to the early renewal of hostilities. There may be a problem with warlordism among opposition groups, but I don't see evidence for it being the problem here.

 But I don't have any doubt that the rate of Iranian/Assadist massacres will increase, for the reasons set out. This is what happens when a people are abandoned in the face of a desperate tyranny, and told that no amount of bombing is a more serious threat than the chimera that the Americans are trying to overthrow Assad.

 'The recent intensity of attacks by Assad forces and their backers in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in Syria reveals what could be expected to follow soon. We will witness two consecutive phases in the next few months:

 1- Ruthless military attacks by IRGC, Syrian army and Hezbollah to cleanse selected areas – deemed strategic and unnegotiable – of the opposition or the Sunnis or both. This will be done under a barrage of soft talks about diplomacy and political solutions, but no serious moves other than the funny Russian initative. All the while, Moscow will keep the diplomatic road opened and oiled with its right hand, and continue giving Assad military hardware with its left hand.

 2 – At one point, and after controlling all the strategic areas required, Iran will say that is ready to go as far as convincing Assad to leave Damascus. International calls for “immediate” cease fire will become louder, pressures on relevant parties will intensify and the trilateral alliance will suddenly assume the role of the dove. This will be introduced by this alliance to the world as a genuine love for peace and sincere feelings for the suffering of Syria’s civilians. But in return, the trio will want to institutionalize the status quo, that is to make its areas recognized by the new regime constitutionally the same way the situation in the South of Lebanon is institutionalized as the land of Hezbollah. Tehran is already building the Syrian Hezbollah under the command of the former prisoner in Israel Samir Al Qentar.

 The whole Syrian war would have ended with the expansion of Hezbollah and Iran on a larger stretch of territory than what they control already in the south of Lebanon and in addition to keeping the coastal west of Syria. Not bad. Not bad at all. What is the counter-plan of the opposition? None. it is not obvious that the Syrian opposition has a unified parallel plan, either to abort the trilateral partitioning intentions or to wage a meaningful counter-attack.

 For example, during the Istanbul talks between the Iranians and Ahrar Al Sham, and while the cease fire around Kafraya and Foua’a was enacted, some opposition groups around the two Shia villages deliberately broke the cease fire to embarrass Ahrar Al Sham.

 It is a structural problem in the Syrian opposition that we find warlordism mixed with legitimate political opposition groups. While it is possible to overcome political differences between legitimate opposition groups by reaching a joint political platform, warlordism is not political to start with.'

How Barack Obama betrayed the Syrian people

 'In late July, the Syrian president gave his first public speech in a year and acknowledged that his regime was depleted and had ceded territory to "the terrorists" - referring to anyone who has joined the insurgency. Assad's public concessions came at a time when both United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin were worrying about the Assad regime's possible collapse.

 Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011, the Obama administration has publicly called for Assad to step aside, while doing everything in private to foreclose that possibility, and in effect, tacitly endorsing the Assad regime.

 Obama said that the opposition was "disorganised, ill-equipped, ill-trained". He stated that the moderate opposition was made up of "farmers or dentists", among others, who all lacked fighting experience, and that it was "magical thinking" to believe that an earlier US involvement could have led to a peaceful transition. All of these points contain partial truths, but they also contain self-serving myths. The Syrian opposition was disorganised and ill-equipped because it was not externally supported the way al-Qaeda was. Much of the moderate opposition consisted of civilians firing guns for the first time, but it also included thousands of Syrian army defectors and civilians who had once been conscripted.

 Obama's refusal to confront Assad and support the opposition allowed the Syrian president to set in place a motion of events that gave rise to ISIL. Assad released Islamist militants from prison to flood the opposition with battle-hardened religious fanatics. His sectarian militia, the shabiha, openly cleansed Sunnis from their villages, driving them into the arms of jihadist groups for protection. Assad reportedly bought oil from ISIL, ignored them on the battlefield, and was even accused by the US state department of being ISIL's air force. The conditions that gave rise to ISIL's terrorist state were, therefore, supplied by Assad's military strategy and Obama's lack of one.

 History will not be kind to those whose actions and inaction led to the Syrian people's ruin. And while this generation may be lost to the squalor of the refugee camp and terror of daily bombardment, a future generation will remember what was done as their fathers and mothers met the most undignified of ends.'

'You are all responsible for our death'

 'There is a deep sense of grievance amongst many Syrians that the West seems to have abandoned them by focusing so singularly on fighting the Islamic State even as the regime continues its brutality.'

Syria, Etc.

 'Now, the everyday violence and death Syrians witness is no longer recorded in full force unless events surpass the daily “acceptable” quota of death—like it did on August 16 in Douma, after more than 100 people were killed by a regime aerial attack on a crowded marketplace. These kinds of mass tragedies, like the chemical weapons attack in 2013 and the Daraya massacre in 2012, capture the world’s attention—headlines, outrage, condemnation—for a few moments before Syria’s suffering once again fades to white noise. When the country has been reduced to smoldering ashes and its people have been forced into a mass exodus to new countries and new homes, our capacity to document—to speak or write and chant—dwindles. History collapses into a simple etcetera.

 At the beginning of the revolution, documentation existed in the present tense, serving to expose what was happening in real time, and breaking Syria’s history of oppression by finally speaking and showing truth. But now, the urgency to be noble and fearless witnesses has faded. There is no humane “world” that exists to plea to for help. Syrians once believed that uploading hundreds of videos of barrel bombs dropping from regime helicopters on civilian areas would be enough to declare a “no-fly zone”—because what world would watch a government indiscriminately bomb its people and stay silent? People believed that documenting repeated chemical weapons attacks would eventually end them. Instead, Obama’s “red line” became a green light for the Assad regime to continue using chemical weapons, including chlorine-laden bombs, even after a United Nations Security Council resolution to ban them. People believed that more than 55,000 smuggled images of tortured, skeleton-like corpses in Assad’s prisons would create an international outrage that would finally send Assad and his regime where they belonged—a trial at The Hague. Instead, Syrians were left alone to battle Assad, Al-Qaida and ISIS.'

Noam Chomsky, Rogue States and Nuclear Dangers

 'Whatever one thinks of Hezbollah, Hamas, or other beneficiaries of Iranian support, Iran hardly ranks high in support of terror worldwide.'

 Try telling that shit to the people of Zabadani. Chomsky once again, shows he hasn't got a clue what Iran and Hezbollah are doing to Syria.

Reading into the Douma market massacre

 'The Douma market massacre is the inevitable result of the failure of the international community to support the freedom of the Syrian people and is a natural product of talking about the inevitability of a “consensual” political solution that grants the head of the Syrian regime immunity against any legal prosecution.

 When the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is a supporter of President Bashar Al-Assad, makes a statement hours after the Douma massacre shamelessly saying: “We support the legitimate president of the Syrian Republic,” the result is more massacres awaiting Syrian cities.

 We can say that the Douma market massacre and Al-Zoubi’s statement in Tehran are messages to the international community and the local community that Assad’s regime will not step down regardless of the cost. It is also a message that pressuring the regime, rejecting its proposals, or presenting proposals that include the elimination of the regime will inevitably result in more incidents like the Douma market massacre.

 How can anyone imagine that the people of Douma, or the people of any other city or town in Syria, will co-exist with the person who killed them, displaced them and did to them what no other invader in history had done?

 The shameful and ironic part of this is that the commander of Jaysh Al-Islam is exploiting this massacre by using it to prove that Zahran Alloush’s approach is the right approach. This approach includes refusing to engage in any battle with the regime in the heart of Damascus, which other opposition forces consider to be Alloush’s failure to provide support to the other nearby fronts in eastern Qalamoun.

 Today, everyone is asking one question: Does Douma need an uprising similar to that of Idlib against Jamal Maarouf, leader of the Syria Revolutionaries Front. This uprising opened the door to strategic victories and has become an example of revolutionary achievements.
In this I am not referring to Alloush personally, but in his capacity as commander of Jaysh Al-Islam and their military strength. Their only concern has become pleasing America, even if that means giving up their own banner and raising the flag of the Syrian revolution, and marketing itself as the most moderate and organised Islamic faction and the most capable of replacing Al-Assad in the event that his regime falls.'

A Day in the Life

 Come to a march from Trafalgar Square at 2pm to Downing Street on Saturday to remember those massacred in Syria two years ago tomorrow with chemical weapons by the Assad régime. Bring some flowers. Fuck's sake.

 Primo Levi, who survived the concentration camp at Auschwitz, says at the start of one his books that when they told the guards that they would pay one day for their crimes, they were jeered at and told nobody would ever believe them. That's what has happened to Assad's victims, lied about the world over, told they might just as well be perpetrating these attacks on themselves to gain the world's sympathy. It's the greatest lie of recent years, that those Assad is bombing and torturing, shelling and sniping, torturing and starving, are no better than he is.

 And other lies go to support it. If people call for outside help, as the people of Kafranbel or the refugees of Zaatari, the largest refugee camp in the world, did, you are a stooge of America, and want them to invade Syria the way they did Iraq. Any argument that the Syrian people should be allowed to defend themselves against this illegal war, is lost in the charge that you are pro-imperialism.

 It is an illegal war. It's a crime to target civilians, it's a crime to use weapons of mass destruction. If America really were trying to intervene to overthrow Assad, survivors like Qusai Zakarya would have been all over the news non-stop. But instead you have to search yourself, to bother to search yourself, to get any knowledge of what's going on. As someone remarked the other day, one attack on a market in Sarajevo provoked international intervention, Assad does that every day, and nobody lifts a finger.

 In fact for the Americans it is a win-win if the conflict goes on. Iran and Hezbollah get weaker, and any time they want an excuse to intervene, they can point to the inaction of the Security Council over Syria, most notably Russian and Chinese vetoes, as the reason they should be allowed to proceed with whatever future actions with a humanitarian cover they propose.

 Conversely, if there were any truth to the genocide-deniers story, someone would have been found to point the finger at the rebels.

 So come along Saturday, and say, never again. Because it's the right thing you do. Because if you don't, Syrians, and anyone who cares about mass murder, will think it is only American interventionists who care about life at all.
[https://www.facebook.com/events/1452769868362630/]

Rebels kill another Lebanese occupier in al Qusair

 'A number of the Lebanese Shiites resettled in and around al Qusair in Homs province after Hezbollah ethnically cleansed most of the Syrian population there are now growing olives on the farms stolen from Syrian residents in the area who were slaughtered or driven out by Hezbollah, with another of the illegitimate settlers reportedly killed on Tuesday.

 The Lebanese militia has established heavily manned ‘safe corridors’ for hundreds of Shiite families from south Lebanon who are being resettled in Al Qusair and the surrounding area, along with the families of Assad’s Tehran-backed ‘National Defence Force’ Shiite militias, in a move to connect the area with the Hezbollah-controlled Shiite Bekaa valley region in Lebanon and regime-controlled coastal areas in Syria.

 Shiite sources report that the man killed on Tuesday, named as Ashraf Hassan Ayad (pictured), was eulogised by the Hezbollah leadership who claimed that he represented a model for the ‘pioneer’ families in Al Qusair. He was reportedly killed by gunfire from Free Syrian Army forces in the area while cultivating olive trees on the farm there illegitimately occupied by the Lebanese settlers.



 Hezbollah now has a massive presence in the south of Syria extending from the Lebanese border all the way to Homs city after it seized control of Al Qusair (located around 15 miles from the border) and the surrounding area with the help of Assad’s forces and other Tehran-backed foreign militias, massacring, terrorising and expelling most of the majority-Sunni population.

 Hezbollah also played a leading role in helping the regime in 2012 to destroy the registry office in Homs which contained all the ownership records and documents for homes and land in the province in order to deny any legal or other rights to the rightful owners of the confiscated properties. Unfortunately the records had not yet been computerised. This was a prelude to seizing the land and properties and transferring ownership to Lebanese Shiites and some Assad regime loyalists chosen by Hezbollah.



 Speaking to All4Syria, a Shiite dissident familiar with events said that the Assad regime had pursued a very deliberate policy of ethno-sectarian forced displacement against residents of Homs city and province as part of Iran’s occupation project in Syria. The Lebanese Shiite families being moved to the ‘cleansed’ areas are provided with funding and financial incentives by the Iranian regime to encourage them to stay in these areas and thus expand Iranian influence over the Syrian-Lebanese border areas. As well as being offered money by Iran, the foreign occupiers are given (stolen) homes and land and further incentives to live there.
This in turn has allowed Bashar al-Assad to move many of the remaining regime loyalists to Homs city and province since they will be supportive of Iranian occupation rather than supporting the return of the indigenous peoples to their homes.

 Speaking to All4Syria, Wael Abu Rayan of the City of Rastan’s media office said that more details of this project have been emerging since a truce between regime forces and the FSA in the area led to the mass exodus of rebels and residents from Homs city to the northern countryside of Homs province following a brutal months-long siege which saw the regime cut off all supplies of food, water and humanitarian aid.'

From a doctor in Douma

 'When I arrived at the Intensive Care Unit, minutes after the air raid, a man stopped me and said “don’t go in there because there’s no space left in the ICU except for the wounded” then another man interrupted him “let him in, he’s a doctor.”

 I wish I had not been in that hospital yesterday and that I did not see what I saw -- a sea of blood and the wounded, doctors and medics were swimming in it.

 As I come to the realization that we have all reached breaking point in that wretched hospital room, a voice came down to us as if from above. We all listen attentively to this voice hoping it will say something to calm us down, the voice starts... “Guys, empty the Intensive Care Unit.. the warplane has launched a second strike, and a third, and... and a tenth.”

 And I begin to see the injuries multiplying, the number of deaths multiplying. And I realize there is no more blood for transfusions, no more sanitized medical equipment and no more serum bags but we continue working as if it’s the end of the world.



 A few hours have elapsed since the air raid and I now look across the Intensive Care Unit. At least the ground has been emptied of its injured although the beds are still all occupied. I begin to feel that the situation is a bit more manageable now. This is when the rescue operations end and the real catastrophe begins. The Syria Civil Defense teams have documented more than 100 deaths.

 I move through the operation rooms and see exhausted doctors who have performed more than 70 surgeries during the past few hours. They have seen guts spilled out, amputated legs, dislodged eyes, slashed necks --- their green scrubs are dark from the blood.

 As for those who have made it through the chaotic ICU and surgery, they are looking at days or weeks at the hospital while they recover.

 For me I want the world to act to stop the killing. I don’t know how else to say it.'

Veterans for Peace gives Assad & ISIS a new tool

 Clay Claiborne:

 'Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director of VFP, cited the campaign to stop Obama from attacking Syria in the wake of the 21 August sarin attack, saying "We stopped a war with Syria." I imagine that was welcome news to the people that lost their lives to a government air strike in Douma on Sunday. Even though Obama is now at war with ISIS in Syria, he is careful not to interfere with Assad doing things like he did on Sunday.

 Obama never had any real intention of attacking Assad after the massive chemical murders anyway. Obama only made his "red-line" statement to tell Assad there would be no military intervention from the US so long as he kept killing the old fashion way. All that VFP and others in the peace movement did with their "No War on Syria" protests of September 2013 was to give Obama "Left cover" for his plan to renege on his promise to the Syrian people.



 Veterans for Peace invited to the convention, as honored guests, three people who acted like Assad's attorneys after the sarin attack. Phyllis Bennis, Ray McGovern and Sy Hersh were all prominent in defending Bashar al-Assad from charges that he was responsible for the chemical murders before he turned over his sarin stockpiles and the OPCW made the match. After the "danger" to their "client" had passed, they dropped interest in finding the real killers. They should have acted like the people's prosecutors in a mass murder case, instead they played the role of the devil's advocate. They should have been out for justice for the victims no matter where it led, but they were only in it to get Bashar al-Assad off.

 It was obvious Michael hadn't given much thought to the effects of this decision inside Syria where it was cheered by Assad supporters and seen as a knife in the back by his opposition. He wasn't aware of the massive defections from the Free Syrian Army to the jihadists that this precipitated and he hadn't seen the connection between America's reneging on that promise and the rise of ISIS and the fall of Mosul, Iraq in its wake.

 For four years now, VFP has campaigned against the imposition of any no-fly zone that would have taken away Assad's ability to bomb his people whenever and however he liked, and for four years now VFP has opposed anyone providing any weapons, including air defense weapons, to the people Assad is bombing. Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford was interviewed by the BBC after the Douma airstrike. He said the fact that Assad can bomb civilians with impunity and the opposition has no effective air defense weapons are the result of "a conscious American decision." These are decisions that VFP supports. The real Obama policy has been one of "closet support" for the Assad regime from the beginning. It is a policy that VFP has given "Left" cover to. By seriously opposing Obama's pretend policy of regime change, VFP has help him sell it despite all evidence to the contrary.'

Facebook is asking me "What's on your mind?"

 "Well, what would be on your mind when you spend your day between rivers of blood and rivers of tears, when you wake up to bloodshed and sleep to the wails of the bereaved mothers and daughters. You feel that this world is a big lie, this humanity is a delusion and those humans are just monsters! And while you feel how much helpless and defeated you are, you know that this must be a nightmare that you will never wake up from."

 Dr. Housam Adnan - Eastern Ghouta after the massacre today.



Note 13/5/25, link unavailable.

Former Syrian rebel leader joins exodus to Europe

 'The situation in Syria is very bad, war is eating everything. (The) government destroy everything, buildings, people, they kill children, women — there are no safe areas in Syria.

 Everyone wants to leave Syria. My (home) is the most dangerous city in the world. About 70 percent of the city is destroyed ... In Syria, Al Qaeda want me, Daesh (the Islamic State extremist group), the government — I fought them all. I don't care. Some people are afraid. I'm not.

 It's hard to take up weapons and fight, but we want freedom. When I started fighting my son was 28 days old. Sometimes, he couldn't remember me because I was away fighting. He didn't call me papa, he called me by my name [Laith — Arabic for lion].

 In the first month of revolution, I was injured in the head. I stayed in my house about one month. After that, I came back to fight, and after a year I was wounded again, a government airplane shot a rocket at me.

 Everything in Syria is beautiful. It is destroyed but it is beautiful for me. Our streets our buildings, my friends ... everything is beautiful in Syria. Maybe I will come back after my family is in Holland. I can't leave my country, I have a name in my country. I can't lose it. My friends are still fighting there.'

What’s happened since 2013 in Eastern Ghouta?

 Mark Boothroyd:

 'Since the chemical attacks on August 21st 2013 the inhabitants of Eastern Ghouta have had no respite from the suffering inflicted upon them by the Assad regime. The siege which only parts of Eastern Ghouta had suffered since early 2013, have now become total. Food and medical aid is reduced to a trickle, and falls far short of what is needed to meet the basic needs of the besieged population.

 Hospitals are targeted by regularly by the regime. The Medical Director of the hospital in the town of Erbeen reported they had been attacked 10 times in the previous year, killing two nurses and badly damaging the facility.

 Over 500 civilians have been killed between January and June this year from regime air strikes. Schools, markets, hospitals; the basic services required to sustain life are all attacked. The aim is to make the situation unliveable and break the will of the population to resist the regime.

 The dire situation has lead to the phenomena of ‘bucket children’, groups of children who roam Eastern Ghouta scavenging and begging for food. With their parents unable to provide for them and little or no educational facilities, scavenging has become a way to pass the time, and perhaps secure at least one meal. In the situation of lawlessness and dire poverty, these children suffer high levels of abuse and labour exploitation, as well as the everyday risk of death from snipers, barrel bombs or shells.

 The residents of Eastern Ghouta still participate in the resistance to the regime. The town of Saqba has a Friday demonstration every week without fail. The demonstrations range from a few hundred of several thousand at a time, and are used to demonstrate their opposition to the regime, and to place demands on the armed groups of the opposition.

 The situation in Eastern Ghouta is a scandal and demands action. Join the demonstration on August 22nd to highlight the continued suffering of people in the Ghouta. Across Syria between 650,000 and 1,000,000 are trapped in nightmarish conditions, subject to siege and warfare. They need our support now more than ever. On Saturday 22 August we will mark the second anniversary of the chemical weapons massacre in Ghouta, Syria.

 We will assemble at 2pm in Trafalgar Square, before walking to Downing Street. Please bring flowers to mourn the dead.'

“They raped children right before their parent's eyes”

 'At a time when the world is talking about terror and the spread of radical ISIS Islamists in Syria and Iraq, the daily atrocities of Syrian dictator Assad, in whose civil war ISIS first came into being, are being overlooked. Our reporters have interviewed Syrians who themselves took part in the murder machine for years. They recount how children were raped in front of their imprisoned fathers, how they were forced to issue false death certificates for victims of torture, and how Assad is still poisoning his people with chemical weapons. Why are we standing idly by doing nothing as a nation is destroyed?

 Former Chief Pathologist Dr. Shahrour cannot understand why no one is stopping the dictator:

 “After I fled Syria on 14th November 2013, I was invited to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. I testified for an hour about all the massacres that I had witnessed. I have seen more than 3,000 victims of cold-blooded murder. All of them died a senseless death. In The Hague, I handed over a police report by the regime about the poison gas attack in Khan al-Assal, which I had stolen and smuggled out from Syria under my shirt. You can still see the marks left on the document by the cold sweat of my fear. In the top-secret report, the regime itself writes that on the morning of the poison gas attack, several witnesses saw fighter jets in the skies over Khan al-Assal. Only the regime has fighter jets. But no-one wanted to know who was responsible for the poison gas attack.The U.N. just wanted to know if chemical weapons were really used. Of course they were. I've seen bodies turned blue, people foaming at the mouth who have died in agony, choking to death. Our nurses also suffered poisoning from handling the bodies. We had to resuscitate one of them.

 I have taken soil samples in Khan al-Assal. I have collected cigarettes and a dead bird, I have analysed the corpses’ clothes. Where have these documents gone? I handed them all over to the public prosecutor’s office in Aleppo. No-one has told me how much of the Assad government’s report remains at the U.N. I doubt that my complete analyses are there, because the regime is responsible for everything I have witnessed and studied.

 Near the missile impact site, the regime has a military base. Countless civilians were poisoned, but not a single Assad soldier died. Did they use gas masks? Was it just a coincidence? I saw the dead and the injured. There was not a single soldier, just men, women, and children in their pyjamas. How can that be? Why is the U.N. not interested?

 When I was studying, I read about what happened in World War II. Never in my life did I think that I would have to document something similar in my work. I could never have imagined that something like this would happen in the world again. I've seen a women who was dressed for her wedding night. Her body was intact, but her head was smashed in, just a bloody pulp. I put my jacket over her face, it was an unbearable sight. This emotional impulse alone could have cost me my head. For the last 40 years, we have paid Syrian taxes so that Assad can buy weapons. Now he is using these weapons against us. It’s a tragedy.” '

Marketplace air strikes 'kill 80'

 'Activists say at least 80 people have died after government air strikes on a marketplace in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus. Around 200 people were reportedly injured in the attack. Government forces have been regularly attacking rebel-held Douma and its surrounding areas in recent months by air raids and helicopter barrel bomb attacks. A Douma-based activist told AP the situation was "catastrophic", adding that clinics in the area were full and many of the wounded were being rushed in civilian cars to other medical facilities since ambulances were overwhelmed. The latest reported strikes coincide with the first visit to the country by the UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien since he took up the post in May.'

 When Assad attacked the eastern Ghouta with sarin gas two years ago this month, one of the excuses given for why he wouldn't have done it was that there were chemical weapons inspectors in the country. In fact Assad has calculated that there is no act of terror that would lead to the international community supporting those he attacks the way Russia and Iran support him, and so far he's been right.

'Writers need to be part of the change in Syria'

 ' "I can't say there are peaceful protests now because there is no opportunity for them to take place. When you go out to protest and missiles are dropped on you, how do you protest? And how are they going to be peaceful?" asks Yazbek, in reference to Bashar's violent crackdown on the demonstrators.

 "They tried to go out and be peaceful, but they had to take up arms and when people take up arms other people begin to profit and it becomes like an arms trade. Some people want there to be a war so they can invest and become war lords and this is how the revolution was derailed from its democratic path. However, this doesn't mean there aren't still people in Syria that aren't still working towards a democratic path. Just because their voices aren't heard and they're not backed, it doesn't mean there aren't still Syrians who believe in a democratic, civilian Syria.

 On her third crossing, Yazbek helped the wife of a martyr set up a project to sell cleaning products from her home, so she could support herself rather than marrying a Yemeni fighter in exchange for money. "The women are in a bad situation but they are still operating," she says. "I believe that we, the people who left the country - and I'm really upset that we had to leave - have to be a bridge and a voice for the people of Syria. The situation of women is bad and the areas where we operate are still being bombed. They're using weapons and bombs and barrels and missiles and cluster bombs. They just destroy everything."

 In the areas controlled by armed, Islamist militants women have no life she says. "They are no longer a part of the public and they're being subjected to all forms of exploitation and violation. The conditions of the Syrian women are just like the Syrian people but because they're women it's worse. Because they're Islamists they think the women are awrah [should not appear in public]. They treat women inhumanely and they've misinterpreted Islam and made up their own rules. So the women are really suffering."

 Yazbek believes the Obama administration has taken a contradictory position when it comes to intervention in Syria. In August 2013 UN weapons inspectors confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in Damascus by the Assad regime, a massacre that killed hundreds in the suburbs just outside Damascus. Obama had previously vowed this was a "red line" that would incite US intervention in Syria, but he never acted on that promise.

 "There's Iranian intervention and American intervention but it's all in favour of Assad... don't you think Hezbollah's involvement is intervention?" she asks. "When Turkey allows all the fighters to go through its borders, isn't that intervention? When the armed groups are supported and backed whereas the Free Syrian Army's leaders are assassinated and not given weapons isn't that foreign intervention?"

 Hopefully her book can help, after all "writers need to be part of the change" she tells me; but what does Yazbek want people to take away from it? "I don't want a lot. I want them to know that what happened in Syria was a revolution. It was a popular, civilian, democratic revolution staged by a nation that tried to call for freedom." '

Dateline London - 15/08/2015

 Mina al-Oraibi: 

 "Assad's forces are pulling back, not because of Daesh (ISIS), it's actually Nusra, so al-Qaida affiliates, and other Turkish-backed and Western-backed groupings of fighters. There's a lot going on in Syria, as there is in Iraq a lot going on, that's actually independent of ISIS. The problem is, that what is going on, especially in the West, is that everyone looks at the Middle East now through the prism of ISIS, which is kind of what they want you to do. They want to claim victories that are actually not their own. They are fighting in a way that is much more guerrilla warfare, but not strong guerrilla warfare. They're not able to hold ground, like they used to be. There are current fights in Syria that they are just keeping out of, and letting others fight among themselves.

 The air campaign will never win, and everybody knows that. What you're going to need is governance on lands they control now, and that is the big problem in Syria, and that is the problem in Iraq. Iraq has been witnessing protests for over a week, where people are going out onto the streets and calling for secularism, in eleven provinces. That's how you will fight ISIS, that you will call for a secular, or let's say a government for all its citizens regardless of religion. The fact that you have people braving the heat of Iraq, and also braving the possibility of bomb attacks on them, and braving a security force that is not always predictable inside of Iraq. To go out and protest, and call for a secular government, that's how you will defeat ISIS in the end, not by air bombing. And you can actually support those sort of movements.

 And the same could be said of Syria. Syria, all sorts of strange groupings are actually being supported at the moment. Some that are al-Qaida affiliated, and it's almost like it's OK, as long as they're not ISIS, we can live with them. No, we can't live with them. That shouldn't be the low bar that we have. The only way this region will get out of the rut it's in now, is to say, hang on, there are values we will fight for, because that's what the people of the region actually want. And these aren't slogans, that's the reality. So the air campaign can go on infinitely. There's very dubious reporting about who is actually being killed in these airstrikes. We don't know, we're only taking what the government feeds to us, whether it's the US government or governments in the Gulf. Journalists are attacked by ISIS, and it's become very convenient on all sides not to have journalists telling us what's going on on the ground.

 So, in a nutshell, the air campaign will never succeed, but there are some promising signs on the ground, Syria we've seen some very interesting diplomacy, with Kerry, Lavrov, and the Saudi foreign minister. So there's some movements on the ground, but it has to be coupled with a political solution that doesn't just mean that as long as it's not ISIS it's acceptable."

For Syria, August is the cruelest month

 'For Syrians, August may be the cruelest month. Two years ago at night, President Assad’s grim reapers in the form of rockets laden with chemical warheads visited Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus and claimed the lives of 1400 civilians, mostly women, children and babies. Once again the Syrians experienced the tragic meaning of ‘the smallest coffins are the heaviest.’

 The world was horrified and looked for the sole superpower to exact retribution but that was not meant to be. The President of the United States of America after unsheathing his sword for the battle, took a walk with his White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and returned with the sword sheathed, fearing maybe that a strong military slap at Assad’s lisping mouth will not poll well with his political base. Four Augusts ago, President Obama (along with European leaders) explicitly called for Assad to resign, after months of bloody crackdown on civilian protesters. ‘For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside’ Obama said in a written statement. In the following years, Syrian skies have been constantly raining barrel bombs, ravaging bodies and souls, and cutting deep scars in Syria’s landscape and collective psyche.'

The statement of the people of Zabadani about the agreement being drafted in Turkey

 This is an offer by Iran to exchange two Shi'ite villages in Idlib province that have served as barracks for Hezbollah's occupying forces now surrounded by rebels, for the evacuation of Zabadani, thus legitmising the sectarian partition and occupation of Syria.

 'We, the sons of Zabadani who fought and will fight the Iranian regime and the forces of occupation in every inch and every house do not accept any Syrian citizen to come out of their homes, and do not accept that we go out of our homes. All we ask is to live in freedom and dignity in our country or die honorably defend them ...'

There won't be peace without prosecution of Assad

 'The expression “no justice, no peace” is usually associated these days with US demonstrations against police killings of African-Americans. But it also applies to Syria, according to Stephen Rapp, who has just stepped down as US ambassador at large and chief of the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice.

 “You can’t even get to peace unless a justice process is developed that’s going to give people confidence that the authors of mass rape and killing are going to be held to account,” Rapp said in the Aug. 11 interview. “Anything else won’t last.”

 Mohammad Al Abdallah, executive director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, praised Rapp for reaching out to Syrian opposition groups, providing technical advice and encouraging President Barack Obama and his administration “to do more than depositing the Caesar photos with the FBI.”

 But Abdallah told Al-Monitor that “without a comprehensive policy from the administration” on Syria, Rapp’s contributions were welcome but insufficient.

 “The less push for accountability, the more tendency to be violent,” Abdallah said of the Syrian conflict. “People would say that nobody cares.” '

Assad Walls Off the Suburb He Gassed in 2013

 ' “Let’s be clear about what the Assad regime is doing [in] Moadamiyah,” said Chris Harmer, a Syria analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War. “They are besieging and starving to death tens of thousands of innocent civilians. This is just the latest example that when it comes to U.S. policy toward Syria there are no actual red lines that the Assad regime can cross. With the rise of the Islamic State American policy in action has essentially said the Assad regime can do whatever it wants without any consequences whatsoever.” '

Defeating Isis in Syria is essential to prevent catastrophe

 Frederic C Hof:

 'Islamic State (Isis) is the catastrophic consequence of political illegitimacy in Iraq and Syria. In Syria the vacuum’s creator is Bashar al-Assad – with the enthusiastic backing of Iran, he pursues a political survival strategy of collective punishment, featuring mass homicide focused on civilians.

 Assad is the cause of Syria’s legitimacy crisis. Isis, aside from the humanitarian catastrophe spawned by Assad, is the principal effect. Assad’s barrel bombs and starvation sieges are gifts of incalculable value to Isis. And Isis’s subjugation of eastern Syria is essential to sustain the group’s military operations in Iraq.

 Key near-term aims could be to introduce regional ground forces into eastern Syria to rout Isis and stand up a new Syrian government, while stopping Assad regime barrel bombs and strikes on residential areas in western Syria. If the desired end in Syria is a negotiated political solution, Isis must be beaten militarily and the regime atrocities stopped. Otherwise there is no basis for talks.

 Legitimate governance for all of Syria – and for that matter all of Iraq – is a long way off. Defeating Isis in Syria – where its lack of a popular base makes it most vulnerable – is the essential first step. Time is of the essence. The Assad-abetted Isis malignancy makes time the enemy.'

Regime committing war crimes in besieged Syria area

 'For many in Eastern Ghouta life "has become a prolonged experience of hardship and suffering," said Said Boumedouha, acting director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme.

 "By repeatedly bombing heavily populated areas in a series of direct, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as well as by unlawfully besieging civilians, Syrian government forces have committed war crimes and displayed a sinister callousness towards Eastern Ghouta's civilians."

 Amnesty said it documented at least 60 aerial attacks on Eastern Ghouta in the first half of 2015 that killed around 500 civilians.

 "The timing and location of these attacks appear deliberately orchestrated to maximise damage or civilian casualties in a gruesome attempt by the Syrian government forces to terrorise the population." '

Syria, Daraya, the regime uses napalm

 'Daraya after being shelled by missiles filled with napalm, August 11, 2015.'

 Also, from Monday, demonstration in Atarib with Free Syrian flags,

 'A demonstration in the city of #Atarib yesterday chanted for the Free Syrian Army and demanded that #Jabhat_al-Nusra leave the city and release detainees in its prisons.'

Hard-line faction backs US-Turkey plans for safe zone

 'The ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group says such a zone is "vital" and serves the interests of the Syrian people.'

 Jabhat al-Nusra¹ hasn't been quite so positive, but seems to be staying out of the way, rather than trying to undermine the arrangement. Elsewhere, régime fronts seem to be collapsing in Hama², and now Daraa³. There are fears of a new régime massacre in the Damascus suburb of Moademiyah, one more way in which local truces have not been a way to bring peace, but "just facilitating the entry of people – the only benefit they received was returning to their destroyed homes to be placed under siege again."⁴ This⁵ seems like a reasonable view of the recent anti-Turkish campaigns by Kurdish groups, supported by much of the international left, leading one Syrian to exclaim, "Honestly - fuck western leftists who continue to fetishize rojava/kurdistan; fuck western leftists who organize and mobilize against the turkish government and ISIS, without also organizing against the syrian regime... fuck your hypocrisy, fuck your conditional solidarity, and fuck your unnuanced politics. tfou."

1. [http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/10/jabhat-al-nusra-abandons-fight-north-of-aleppo-as-turkey-and-u-s-plot-safe-zone/] [https://www.lawfareblog.com/statement-jabhat-al-nusra-about-recents-events-rural-northern-aleppo-turkish-intervention]
2. [http://eaworldview.com/2015/08/syria-video-feature-two-contrasting-images-of-regimes-retreat-from-hama-province/]
3. [https://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/syria-the-southern-battle-front-fsa-begins-to-storm-daraa/]
4. [https://syrianobserver.com/syrian-actors/truces_fail_damascus_countryside_regime_flexes_control_rebel_held_areas.html]
5. 'The PKK and HDP wasted a historic opportunity for the sake of this unrealistic plan and chose to fight instead. They vastly overrated themselves and underestimated Turkey. Now in a panic, they are trying to portray themselves as victims so that the process can begin again. However, they are the ones who killed people in front of their families or while sleeping in their beds. And 80 percent of the Turkish public supports the operations against ISIS and the PKK.' [http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/markar_esayan/2015/08/11/why-did-the-pkk-and-hdp-commit-this-lunacy]

If Barack Obama ever had a strategy for Syria

 'One of the most puzzling aspects of this new phase of American involvement is that it is in no way expressly intended to provide protection for civilians. Yet it is precisely because civilians are not being protected that Isis has been able to grow.

 It is hard, these days, to find any strong American high-level language denouncing the slaughterhouse that Bashar al-Assad has brought down on his own people. Nor is there any talk of an international tribunal that might deal one day with these crimes. Of course Russia would veto any of this, but why not at least expose Moscow’s complicity by raising the question of mass atrocities – not just chemical weapon use – in the UN security council?

 In the case of Syria, a whole body of international norms meant to counter state-sponsored massacres of civilians has been put aside, including the notion of the “responsibility to protect” which was voted in the UN 10 years ago.

 Obama’s apparent indifference to the plight of Syrian civilians – not just the fact that he failed to work out a solution – will be part of his legacy.'

Will the Syrian regime triumph?

 'There is no doubt that any bets on the possibility of Al-Assad's regime surviving in Syria are a delusion because the survival of the regime poses more of a disaster to its supporters than to its opposition. This is because it has become a black hole that absorbs all of its supporters' resources and credibility while giving nothing in return. The Iranian government was sectarian and politically exposed and it lost the support of the people in the region due to its support of the regime's atrocities. Iran also lost Hezbollah by involving it in the quagmire. If the regime survives, it will only behave worse, thus increasing financial and moral cost for Tehran. This will only make Tehran drown, just as the Soviet Union sunk in the Afghanistan quagmire.

 The continuation of the current situation in Syria would be impossible without Western support, and it will not continue since there is no desirable benefit in exchange for this support. The dangers that resulted from the survival of the Syrian regime and its policies did not occur due to a lack of support, but rather from the magnitude of the support for it. More support will only drag the West into the regime's quagmire without actually lessening the harms of its survival. It will only mean more displacement for Syrians (and perhaps even the Lebanese as well) who will head towards the coasts of Europe and contribute to the destabilisation of the area.

 Whatever the case, the issue was decided with the launch of Turkey's equivalent of Saudi's Operation Decisive Storm which aims to seize areas under Daesh's control and hand them over to the moderate Syrian opposition. It also aims to create safe zones for both the opposition and the civilians. This will lead to creating conditions conducive to hastening the process of overthrowing the Syrian regime and secure a suitable alternative. Therefore, the "end game" will mean the end of the Assad regime. The wise in Russia and Iran understand this and are trying to turn this catastrophe into a gain before it is too late.'

Message to the world from the revolutionists in Zabadani

 'This is a message to the world from the revolutionists in Zabadani, a lovely city in Syria. Assad Regime is killing us and destroying our city. You are all responsible for our death. Your silence is keeping him strong. Remember, we only wanted to live in a free Syria. Syria for all Syrians.'



 Note 12/5/25, link broken.

Barrel Bombs Are the Greatest Threat to Syrians

 'From the start of the war, the Assad government has pursued a murderous policy toward Syrian citizens who happen to live in areas that have been seized by opposition armed groups. The apparent aim is to kill and terrorize civilians (and destroy civilian structures) so as to drive civilians from opposition-held areas and to send a warning of the misery that attends anyone whose neighborhood is taken by opposition groups. Mr. Assad is thus pursuing the “total war” strategy that the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war flatly prohibit and criminalize.

 Beyond killing civilians, barrel bombs are playing a big part in forcing Syrians from their country. In most wars, civilians can find a modicum of safety by moving away from the front lines. But Mr. Assad’s indiscriminate use of barrel bombs deep in opposition-held territory means that for many there is no safe place to hide. That ugly reality has played a major part in persuading four million people to flee the country.

 Yet the international community has made little effort to stop Mr. Assad’s barrel bombing of civilians. The two governments with the greatest potential to influence Mr. Assad — his principal backers, Russia and Iran — have refused to get him to stop. Western governments have been reluctant to exert strong public pressure on them because of other priorities — Ukraine, in the case of Russia, and the nuclear deal, in the case of Iran. The European Union is putting far more effort into stopping Syrian asylum seekers from reaching the Continent than addressing the root causes of their flight. The United States and Turkey recently announced a plan to make a 60-mile strip in northern Syria an “ISIS-free zone,” but the goal is to fight ISIS militants, not protect civilians.

 Because of Western reticence, too few people understand the extraordinary slaughter that the Syrian military is committing with its barrel bombs. Mr. Assad’s chlorine gas attacks, terrifying as they are, kill a tiny fraction of the barrel-bomb toll, though they have recently attracted more attention than the barrel bombs.

 One reason for soft-pedaling is a fear that ending the barrel-bomb attacks might undermine Mr. Assad’s ability to cling to power, and thus facilitate an Islamic State takeover. But barrel bombs are so imprecise that the Syrian military does not usually drop them near the front lines, for fear of hitting its own troops. They are useful mainly for pummeling civilian neighborhoods.

 President Obama has reportedly been reluctant to act too decisively in Syria for fear that he might then “own” the country and the chaotic mess it has become. But firmer pressure on Syria, Russia and Iran to stop the barrel bombs wouldn’t make the United States responsible for anything other than fewer civilians dead, injured and displaced.'

I Will Always Remember Where I Was When Cecil The Lion Was Killed

 'I often wonder what is wrong with America. You do not hear stories like this in Syria, partly because we already killed all our lions but also because we killed all our dentists.

 The hardest part was explaining to my eldest son why Cecil was killed. He asked if Cecil was a Kurd or a Christian, and I said no, sometimes people and animals are killed for totally unjustifiable reasons.

 I must go now. The Shabiha have surrounded the building to either press gang us into the Army or execute us. No matter. If we die, we die knowing that the infidel dentist has been appropriately punished on Facebook.

 Hopefully I will see Cecil in the afterlife, along with my grandparents who were murdered at the massacre in Hama.

 Hail Cecil!'

Shiite Casualties Show Depth of Iran's Involvement

 'According to open-source data collected from Persian-language accounts of funerals in Iran, 113 Iranian nationals, 121 Afghan nationals, and 20 Pakistani nationals -- all Shiites -- have been killed in combat in Syria since January 2013. (The formidable number of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiite casualties are not included in this survey; for more on that subject, see "Hezbollah's Victory in Qalamoun: Winning the Battle, Losing the War"* and "Iraqi Shiite Foreign Fighters on the Rise Again in Syria.")

 To further complicate matters, the place of death for most of them is listed as "Syria" or "the shrine in Damascus," which is meant to back up the fiction that they were martyred while defending Shiite pilgrimage sites rather than, for example, fighting in Aleppo far to the north.
The Qods Force and its Afghan/Pakistani recruits are spread thin and suffering significant casualties, spurring the deployment of the IRGC Ground Forces to Syria. Even so, Iran is unlikely to abandon its commitment to its proxy regime in Damascus in the short term. The Islamic Republic in general, and the IRGC in particular, have invested so much blood and treasure in the war that they no longer believe they can withdraw their support.'

* 'Given what is at stake in Syria -- the fall of Assad would dramatically complicate Hezbollah's supply lines from its Iranian patrons -- the militia is all in. If the past four years are any indication, the group will continue to hold its own against Sunni rebels along the border and serve as Assad's crack force in strategically important areas. As the war drags on, however, Hezbollah's operational stresses and limitations will become ever more apparent. Bolstered by Tehran and Nasrallah, Assad could hang on for some time, but even his most reliable Shiite allies may not be able to sustain him as the war's attrition increasingly highlights his demographic disadvantage. For better or worse, the only factor that may forestall his seemingly inevitable fall is the estimated $60 billion in sanctions relief that Iran stands to gain after a nuclear deal is inked.'

Nowhere to go, but never at home

 'Turkey has most readily provided Syrians, from all strata of society, with an opportunity to resume a sense of normalcy in their lives. Syrian engineers, agronomists and medical professionals are able to use their expertise to give back to their host country by working in one of the several non-governmental and international organizations that are based in Turkey and provide humanitarian assistance across the border. Others, with considerably lower levels of education, are hired in restaurants or as day laborers where employers can get away with paying lower wages. Even so, compared to the policies of most Gulf countries — Kuwait has banned entry for Syrians altogether – Syrians in Turkey are able to find work and send their children to schools. Refugee camps along the Turkey-Syria border, where more than 217,000 Syrians in Turkey reside, are considered to provide “better living conditions compared to those in other countries.”

Syrians often report being treated with disdain — at best, as guests who must eventually depart or, worse, as intruders who should be expelled immediately. Below the surface of the daily live-and-let-live miracles of Turkey’s support for Syrians as they attempt to restart their lives, one can sense the growing hostility from host communities toward the large Syrian populations living among them. Earlier this year, Turkish parents protested a school’s decision to provide afternoon classes to Syrian children; “Different culture, Different language, Different faith,” they chanted.

Many yet are hopeful they will be able to return to their homes in Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Homs. While only a few are optimistic about the future, if and when the dust settles, they retain pride in and patriotism for their country and remain resistant. When I asked a Syrian friend of mine if he would like to move to the United States or Europe, his response was emphatic: “We were born in Syria, we started the revolution in Syria and we will die in Syria.” '

Inching towards the end

 'Until early this year two of Syria’s players, the regime of Bashar Assad and Islamic State (IS), were in the ascendant. The tide against both has since turned. Recent analysis by Jane’s, a defence analyst, suggests that after a series of losses to both IS and other, rival rebel groups, the area fully controlled by government forces has shrunk since January by some 16%, to a mere 30,000 square kilometres (11,600 square miles), or barely a sixth of Syria’s territory.

And this was before a recent offensive by a coalition of mostly Islamist militias calling itself Jaish al-Fatah, which on July 28th captured the government’s last salient on the route linking Syria’s second city, Aleppo, to the coast. The advance, which follows the fall in March of a provincial capital, Idlib, and of another big town, Jisr al-Shughour, in April, further consolidates rebel control of Idlib province. Jaish al-Fatah now threatens both the surrounding rich agricultural region and the coastal mountain range that is the heartland of Mr Assad’s own Alawite sect.

Despite the fact that Turkey has long argued for a stronger international effort against Mr Assad, its formal entry into the fray is unlikely to tip the equation decisively against Syria’s regime. Iran, soon to be flush with funds unblocked by the lifting of sanctions, is for now at least still committed to propping up the Syrian leader. Even with better weapons and stronger momentum, Sunni rebels lack both the manpower and unity of command needed for a push towards Damascus, the Syrian capital. Some of their component groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, which declares allegiance to al-Qaeda, remain anathema to Western powers who might otherwise be keener to accelerate Mr Assad’s fall.

Despite its success at Palmyra, IS’s “caliphate” is an unhappy place, bludgeoned from the air by coalition strikes and shrinking in size. Kurdish forces have relentlessly expanded since breaking the jihadists’ siege of Kobane last winter, most recently seizing the town of Sarrin on the Euphrates River. While few expect any sudden collapse, many analysts believe that, barring some error by its enemies that would win it a flood of new allies, IS may have already peaked in size and strength.'

It might be said they can't push towards Damascus because the Americans won't allow them to.

Obama's deal with Ankara is a betrayal of Syrian Kurds

 There have been no barrel bomb attacks by Assad in Aleppo for two days, for the first time since 2013*, probably because of the threat of Turkish intervention in the area. Syrian refugees in Lebanon support** the Turkish proposal to create a safe zone in Northern Syria, in the hope they will be able to return home. If you read Patrick Cockburn you will hear none of this, as his project to make the horrors in Syria not about Assad once again requires blaming Turkey.

 'Ankara’s objective is the precise opposite of Washington’s and little different from that of Isis.'

 Get some proportion. ISIS want to set up a brutal caliphate, Turkey wants an end to the genocide in Syria, and the return of the refugees it has generously provided for. There is a bit of a difference.

 'The Turks and their allies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar would like to rebrand the Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, movements, whose beliefs and actions differ little from Isis, as born-again moderates.'

 We've been through this lie before. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have provided support for the FSA Cockburn has spent a lot of time pretending don't exist, but are prepared to acknowledge that groups like Ahrar al-Sham are part of the insurgency and can't be seen as a greater threat than Assad as the Americans do. They were greeted as liberators when they freed Idlib, they didn't chop one head off, they differ quite a lot from ISIS.

 'Al-Nusra abducted Nadeem Hassan, the leader of a small faction trained by the US after careful vetting. And last year, al-Nusra wiped out two groups, the Syrian Revolutionary Front and Harakat Hazm, who were being trained and supplied by the CIA as “a third force” opposed to both Assad and the extreme jihadis.'

 When these groups existed, Cockburn would pretend they didn't. When it was proposed that the US vet rebels, we were told that would be impossible. They weren't being trained as a force opposed to Assad at all, that is why the US cvould only get 54 of them.

 'If US aircraft based at Incirlik are forbidden to attack Isis fighters when they are battling either the Syrian Kurds or the Syrian army, the militants’ two main opponents on the ground...'

 Ignoring the FSA groups who have been fighting ISIS since the start of last year. I can't think of anything more likely to increase support for ISIS than the US acting as Assad's airforce.

 'Close observers of the Syrian armed opposition in northern Syria say that it welcomes the Turkish attack on the PKK.'

 I think we can assume that these close observers are enemies of the Syrian opposition, and no evidence for this lie will be found.

 Richard Spencer has a rather better piece*** suggesting President Obama doesn't want to defeat ISIS until moderate Sunni forces are built up in Iraq and Syria. Joseph Daher has a poor one****, taking all the bad things about Turkey's relationship with the Kurds to pretend that Turkey is encouraging ISIS.
*[https://twitter.com/IbnNabih1/status/627500310571950080]
**[https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/syrian-refugees-in-lebanon-support-safe-zone-proposal/21048]
***[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11776845/Barack-Obama-does-not-want-to-defeat-Isil-yet.html]
****[https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/the-terrorist-attack-of-daech-in-suruc-turkey-the-akp-and-the-turkish-deep-state-are-also-guilty/]