Friendly genocide

 'Besieging and starving Syrians is friendly genocide.

 It doesn’t threaten world peace or security' - From a sign in Jableh, Lattakia (Syria).

Syrians place their faith in Geneva II talks

 This is just not true. The vast majority of Syrians reject any compromise with Assad. The independent opposition group* that is the subject of the piece is not representative, and the decision of the SNC to consider attending Geneva II is hedged around conditions that would hope to ensure a transition away from Assad, and even that has been rejected by those in Syria.

*I can't find any other English-language reference to them. There is a group called we are all Syria on Facebook, but they seem to be FSA fans.

Typhoon Assad and Western indifference

 'When societies cannot be bothered by mass murder occurring elsewhere, then a perilous threshold has been crossed. Americans and Europeans are not obliged to empathize with Syrians, but somehow when room is left only to debate the economy, health insurance, and gay marriage, it doesn’t say much about a society’s commitment to its stated humanitarian values. One cannot in the same breath loudly lament the killing of some 3,000 civilians on Sept. 11, 2001, and yet say that nothing can be done at all about a regime responsible for the death of an estimated 36 times that number since 2011.'

U.S. condemns Syria rocket attacks into Lebanon

 'One source also said that two Syrian gunships fired salvoes of rockets at a residential area on the outskirts of Arsal, northeast Lebanon.

 Lebanon officially adopts a policy of disassociating from developments in Syria and in 2012 rival political leader agreed to the “Baabda Accord,” a pact that calls for neutralizing Lebanon from regional crises, particularly the neighboring Syrian war.'

Robert Ford: Syrian regime blocking aid is ‘criminal’

 'What I can tell you is that lines of control have only shifted a little bit week to week. The regime has made some advances outside of Aleppo, but the regime also lost a very big supply depot in Homs and they have also lost ground in Dera’a. And so this war continues without either side being able to deliver a decisive blow. It is a bloody war of attrition, and that is why we and the United Nations and other countries are urging that there be a negotiation to try to find a political settlement and stop the bloodshed.'

 If there is a stalemate with a massive inequality of arms, then the rebels could win if the Americans allowed the gap to be redressed. They would rather stitch up a deal with the Russians.

Opportunity for the media

 Stop The War has an anti-war conference coming up, featuring a nun who supports the Assad régime, and has even done some dirty work for it. So some supporters of the revolution in Syria were talking about picketing the event. I think this is a good idea, but don't feel much like doing it myself. I haven't been to any other demonstrations regarding Syria, and didn't want to make my first a demonstration against other people on the Left, however misguided they are about Syria. Having said that, it would be an opportunity for the media to picture someone holding a placard reading:

 "THE ONLY WAY TO END THE WAR IN SYRIA IS TO ARM THE FREE SYRIAN ARMY"

 [or "END THE WAR IN SYRIA - ARM THE FSA" for brevity]. One that other people on the Left should be taking, but are not. Talking of people on the left, I saw this on the STW page[https://www.facebook.com/events/227171110774591/] for their conference. I don't believe in guilt by association, but this is evidence of an association.

 David Rose: Here is a picture of Kevin Ovenden who has worked with the STWC for over a decade, in Syria, being greeted by Syrians, on the Viva Palestina convoy. You will note that there are SSNP flags flying.

 http://oi44.tinypic.com/2zp2wbb.jpg

 "How can you be opposed to a country and an organisation like the SSNP that has been in lockstep all the way with British campaigners against Zionism, against imperialism, and for the Palestinians?"

Syrian activists flee abuse in al-Qaeda-run Raqqa

 Jeremy Paxman, introducing this report just now: "It has been the fond hope of Western governments that rebels would overthrow Bashar al-Assad and introduce secular democracy." If that were the case, why haven't those governments helped the rebels at all?

The Colourful Yarn That Binds Me to Syria

 'I remember how the children of Atmeh understand Syria. I remember how, while the world remains disconnected and paralyzed by the tragedies, the children remain focused on their bright, hopeful and colourful future, which will soon pave them a street back home to their childhood. This time, inside a Free Syria.'

Battle for strategic Syrian town shows why war has displaced millions

 ' “What happened in Ariha is a small version of what is happening everywhere in Syria,” said Abu Ahmed, a 46-year-old former Ariha government official who’d fled to Reyhanli, Turkey, on the border with Syria, and who asked to be identified by an Arabic nickname that means “Ahmed’s father.” “The army goes in, attacks the people, kills the people who stay behind, then fires on the people who are fleeing. Then it takes control of everything in the area. It destroys everything.”

 Rebel participants in the battle in Ariha say it was fought not by the foreign extremists who increasingly dominate the anti-Assad movement, but by residents who were prepared to die to defend their families and bring down the Assad government. It came against a backdrop of more than a year of rebel harassment of Syrian military convoys on the highway and deadly attacks on government checkpoints that had begun to take shape as early as the middle of 2011.'

 Again, the jihadis may dominate the news coverage (and be increasing in significance), but that doesn't mean it isn't this less reported structure of a revolutionary people's war that is what the conflict in Syria is actually still mostly about. An al-Jazeera correspondent, a couple of days ago, talking about the relationship between the FSA and the Syrian National Coalition, said, "It's the fighters who are creating the revolutionary reality on the ground."

What does it mean to Syria and to the world if Assad stays?

 'If Assad is permitted to stay, the world will stand guilty and condemned.

 4. For failing to spread awareness among the peoples of the world about the true extent and dimensions of one of the worst tragedies to hit mankind in recent history, resorting instead to defame and slander the Syrian people by holding them responsible for the actions of the invading infiltrating Qaeda and affiliates, ignoring that they are the victims and that the Syrian regime should have stopped them instead of concentrating all its efforts on killing its own people.'

The Woman in Pants

 'An old lady waiting for news of her son; she waits until I've finished, [protesting against the al-Qaida linked authorities in Raqqa] and then follows me, to encourage me and say that she's sorry, that there aren't more people like me.'

Syrian Revolution Media Demonstration Report 11/8/2013: “No to Iranian Occupation of Syria”

 'Many #peaceful #anti_government demonstrations happened again yesterday in #Syria, despite increased military operations. The Independent Syrian Statistic Center of Demonstrations counted 41 demonstrations in 39 area points, rallied across Syria, on the weekly Friday Nation Wide call action named: “No to Iranian Occupation of Syria”, democratically voted on weekly at The Syrian Revolution Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution.'

In Syria, Where Burials Have Become A Luxury

 'Funeral processions once served as a rallying point for thousands of people to renew their pledge to topple the regime and follow the path of the revolution. The ceremony would start with a prayer at the neighborhood mosque, and then attendees would carry the coffins to the cemetery and bid the fallen their final farewell.

 All of that changed when a funeral procession was infiltrated by the shabiha and ended in the killing of 17 people, with dozens of others missing. That would be the last public procession.

 Sometimes, the ferocity of the bombardments take away any need or hope for burial. Attempts to retrieve the dead are futile when the army drops TNT-laden barrel bombs or fires surface-to-surface missiles, capable of leveling four-story buildings. Their bodies are left where they have fallen to decompose.'

Syria out of chicken?

 This is correct.

 'The regime's capability to recover, survive and once again manage the country is no longer possible whether there's an alternative or whether the vacuum remains. What the Assad regime can resume doing is fighting the war, as it is spending its savings and men on it. It's also receiving aid from parties which support it in hopes there will be a political solution that may save it later. It's difficult to answer the question of how can a political solution restore the regime since the latter possesses nothing anymore to run the state. All what's left is destroyed cities and spirits full of vengeful aspirations.'

 It would indicate a general catastrophe if the North London chicken shops couldn't do business any more.

Tawakkol Karman praises Turkey

 'People of the Muslim world are “dreaming the same dream,” Karman said. “The dream is about having a democratic, free and humane life,” Karman explained. “I believe these honorable dreamers will topple the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.”

 Karman saluted the audience in Turkish and Kurdish, and said that people succeeded to topple the dictators in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. “Now they will definitely be able to topple the dictator Assad in Syria. I believe in that.” '

Lack of U.S. Peace Movement Solidarity with Syrian Uprising and the “No Good Guys Excuse”

 'The Syrian Revolution’s grassroots civilian base still exists, and is still unified around democratic values. Its cadres have been killed and imprisoned by the Assad regime’s ongoing repression; marginalized by diasporic political bodies; and face increasing repression by extremist armed forces.

 But after the non-Syrian jihadists go home, and the contentious foreign agendas rearrange themselves, the people power of the civilian resistance will still be there, if its participants have not all been killed or imprisoned by then. They are not Islamists, and they are not “fractious,” they are nobody’s proxy, and they are the only hope for building a democratic post-Assad Syria.'

My journey into a nightmare war

 "Over the months, I heard my cousins get angrier. Zafar and his brother Mohammed – who is 25 and only four years older than me – joined the rebels, the Free Syrian Army. They weren't the kind of guys you would ever imagine to be fighters but they didn't feel they had an option."

The Grapes of My Country: Syrian Journalism Baptized in Blood

 'Between August 20-25, hundreds of Darayya residents were shot in cold blood after the regime stormed the city, shelling it and carrying house-to-house raids. It was the most dramatic moment in the city´s recent history, and it deeply affected the Grapes of My Country team. The trauma caused by the loss of friends and relatives and the death of one of the project’s co-founders, Mohammad Quraitem, soon after, led to the subsequent decentralization of the project, which spread to other cities. They started publishing in the northern areas free of regime control, such as Raqqa, Aleppo and Idlib, where there was more room for work.

 “The project was about to end around that period, but we managed to continue,” one of the team members explained. “Our journalistic experience and commitment to tell the truth were now baptized in blood.”

 Ten months after leaving Darayya, the team is now preparing its re-launch there, following petitions from residents. The fact that the city has no electricity and is subjected to an almost total isolation, makes Grapes of My Country more necessary than ever.'

Support The Building Of Civil Society in Syria

 In Danish.

 'The purpose is twofold: first, to get an insight into everyday Syrians and civil society need and to be able to bear witness and give voice to alternative stories of resistance, dignity and a Syrian revolution, which are seldom heard. The aim is also to tell about ordinary Syrians and their civil society, to show that there is support to get outside, a support is not dictated by economic or political interests.'

The World’s Silence on Syria is a Silence of Hypocrites

 'Yes, we have interests in Syria; yes, those interests could be helped or harmed by intervening. But simple humanity calls on us to do something. We don’t even need to send in missiles; no, sending words would do. But the words we send must be much more potent than what has already been said; we — as humans — must demand rights for the Syrian people, must demand that Iran cease its intervention, and must demand that Assad step down.'

Voices for Syria – Time to Start Listening

 'The left – which claims to have an internationalist vision - should be in the forefront of building solidarity with Syria: so far there is little sign of that, but I can continue to hope. I have commented elsewhere on the weakness of Syrian solidarity activity in this country contrasted with the much more serious response of the French left.'

Don't let the cats die

 'In Syria, people are cutting and eating cats becaue of hunger. So, we start a project to save the cats in Syria.

 We suppose that the people who are silent while people are dying, maybe will care about the cats. Thank you for your support.'

Hardtalk

 Interview with someone presumably from the FSA in Turkey. Says close to the end, "The FSA lacks firepower, so al-Qaida gets in."

Why Obama Did Not Make War on Syria

 'There’s a problem in reducing politics to litmus tests as to which state is pro-U.S. or anti-U.S., a bad habit of the “anti-imperialist” wing of the left that has little interest in what Syrian or Iranian Marxists stand for. In my view, the most urgent task facing the left today is uniting socialists, not disgusting third world dictators like Qaddafi or al-Assad who are worshipped because Nicholas Kristof editorializes against them.'

 Louis N. Proyect knows what he's talking about.

 At some point I do mean to get back to a couple of related subjects. Flying Rodent's obituary of Norman Geras* reminded me how good the Indecent Left were at pointing out the failure of logical or polite argument by their pro-Iraq War opponents, but how this became a simple picture of "right-wing monsters" ravaging the globe, which becomes an embarrassing parody of itself when applied to Syria, where the predictions about WMD are reversed. I also want to examine what imperialism actually means, when it comes to taking guns from the Americans, if that were ever to happen, or approving of Western airstrikes, in a context where they have no interest in bringing about régime change, because they don't encourage revolution and straight transfer of alleigance can't really be done like that, as in Syria today. Though somebody who cares more about developing marxist theories of imperialism might do a better job.
*[http://flyingrodent.blogspot.co.uk/…/a-requiem-for-blog.html]

 Also Phil Edwards' piece saying that Putin has preserved international law. He's someone else I've got a lot of time for, but this is not good.[http://gapingsilence.wordpress.com/…/…/no-top-and-no-bottom/]

Inside Syrian town living under al Qaeda reign of fear

 'Other edicts come by word of mouth – no smoking, no cameras. Behind them are often foreign jihadists from the al Qaeda linked militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.'

Note 23/2/25, not from the then al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

Abortion of the Soul

 'What transpires is a call to arms for a revolution of the soul in modern Syria. A revolution in which political freedom and the freedom of the individual regardless of gender are to be cherished and the old patriarchal concepts are to be aborted. Without a formal charge, Bahraa was arrested in Damascus at her university on 2nd February 2012 and held for 53 days. Many suspect that it is partly due to the controversial topic of her accomplished documentary.'

Unifying Syria's Rebels: Saudi Arabia Joins the Fray

 Yezid Sayigh:

 This is interesting:

 'This leaves the Saudi leadership heavily dependent on Syria’s Sunni rebels. If its plan to unite them fails, Riyadh’s credibility will be diminished. Worse, Saudi Arabia could find itself replicating its experience in Afghanistan, where it built up disparate mujahideen groups that lacked a unifying political framework. The forces were left unable to govern Kabul once they took it, paving the way for the Taliban to take over. Al-Qaeda followed, and the blowback subsequently reached Saudi Arabia.

 In Syria, Saudi reliance on funding and weapons supply as principal levers of acquiring influence, the concentration on escalating military pressure on the regime without developing a clear political strategy to defeat it in parallel, and the focus on mobilizing and strengthening groups with an overtly Sunni Muslim character risk contributing to a similar outcome. The Saudi leadership should be careful what it creates in Syria: Muhammad’s Army may eventually come home to Mecca.'

TV star figures in Syria uprising and pays a price

 'Anaheed Fayyad, a Syrian-Palestinian who also acted in "Bab el-Hara," left weeks after the uprising broke out, saying she had been critical of Assad in public and on Facebook and worried that her family would suffer.

 "Although I've been unemployed and without any income for three years, I feel free to say what I please without fear," said Fayyad, 30. "So I say that I'm with the revolution wholeheartedly and that Assad is an illegitimate president, in the wrong place, and should be removed."

 Incidentally:

 'Have you ever watched a little boy die of hunger before your very eyes before? Damascus (Yarmouk Camp): Nov 2, 2013 - His name is Abdulhay Yousef. He’s 4 years old. He’s a Palestinian refugee living in Yarmouk Camp, Damascus. He starved to death yesterday as Assad’s forces continued their crippling siege of the neighborhood, not allowing anything, not food, not medicine, nothing into the camp.

 There are still many who dare champion Assad as the leader of the resistance, as pro-Palestinian.'
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170502054921/http://www.therevoltingsyrian.com/post/65904998784/have-you-ever-watched-a-little-boy-die-of-hunger]

Syrian revolution is now a battle between jihadists and the Free Syrian Army

 'ISIS takes over the more populated areas around the rebel held zones, then squeezes the rebels out of the center. This exploits the vacuum that was created when government loyalists were overwhelmed and other nations opted not to get involved.'

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

 I was thinking this morning that when there was a revolution in Portugal in the 70s, the British left scrambled around to find groups in Portugal it could relate to. Thus the SWP found itself befriending a group called the PRP-BR, with the BR I think standing for revolutionary brigades, as they were just coming out of a guerilla struggle against Franco's dictatorship. You have to show solidarity before you earn the right to criticize. When the Left here has seen fit to lecture Syrians on the dangers of hitching their cause to imperialism (misunderstanding that any involvement of the West in Syria has not, and will not, have the character of régime change), while doing nothing to support Syrians, one can only look on in despair at the short-sightedness. Because there has been a revolution there, because hundreds of thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more will likely do so, because it is hard to get to grips with an armed conflict in a part of the world where America is not the dominant imperial power, this will be what people will lambast the Left with for a generation from now.

 There was actually a half-decent joint statement put out by Socialist Resistance, Workers Power, the Anti-Capitalist Initiative and the International Socialist Network, which called for the arming of the rebels, along with some patronising stuff about how important it was to link up with the more-pro-Assad types in Stop The War to prevent American aggression. But there has been precious little stuff apart from that that I can even see on their respective websites. Workers Power may be an honourable exception there.

 I heard a guy from Greepeace asked the other day, about their members detained in Russia, "What else can you do at the moment?" He said, "We do what we can. We're demonstrating outside the Russian embassy today, we have a petition." If the Left doesn't do the same things over Syria, what is its point?

 I haven't heard much from anyone on the left over Syria since the intervention crisis predictably went away. The ISN had a meeting on Syria and Egypt, but nobody bothered to say even how that went or if anything came out of it.

 It would be useful if socialists had an input to the Syria revolution. A strategy that could be based on the seizure of the means of production, of transportation, of the power supply, might have cut short the resistance of a state with nothing more than guns to defend itself. The historic collaboration of the Left with the Ba'athist dictatorship in Syria is why that's not a popular option right now. But if it just presents what is going on as a series of images, as in the video below, it isn't going to add to anyone's understanding. Or have a credible answer when asked, "What did you do about Syria?"

 Here's a passage from Colin Barker's book, Revolutionary Rehearsals*, about the Iranian Left:

 "If one wants an index of the weakness of the Iranian Left in 1979, one has to look no further than their failure to campaign openly among the workers, in the Shoras [councils] and elsewhere, in unambiguous support for the rights of women to determine their own lives, of the rights of the religious minorities to pursue their faith in complete freedom, and of the rights of the national minorities to secede from the Iranian state. A movement against oppression and exploitation that is divided and sectionalised is a movement more easily defeated...The more advanced the workers movement, the more it can urge its allies to adopt its own principles."

 *[http://www.scribd.com/…/Colin-Barker-Ed-Revolutionary-Rehea…]

Radicalisation in Syria poses growing threat to Europe, says Turkish leader

 'If the atmosphere remains as it is, then this can lead to more radicalisation and some groups in the civil war becoming more extreme, dividing up, not being under control, and spreading across that country. Because under those circumstances, ordinary people could become much more extreme and this is something that poses a danger and threat not just for Turkey – it's an issue for everyone.'

 Stopping "intervention" was not a great thing we did on behalf of the Syrian people, or in solidarity with the Syrian revolution; in the absence of any real aid, it just means that intervention is more likely to be imposed on Syrians, right now from the Russians, from others when they can't keep a lid on it.

Did Syria’s Assad get away with chemical weapons attack?

 'Somehow, Assad not only got away with the gas attack, but appears to have also emerged stronger after it. How is that possible?

 Russian President Vladimir Putin had a lot to do with it. By stepping into the standoff between Syria and the U.S., he tossed Assad a lifeline that also allowed President Barack Obama to forgo intervening in a conflict most Americans wanted no part in after a decade of costly wars in distant Muslim lands.'

 I thought the comments thread on Guardian pieces sometimes entirely miss the point, but at least they don't have Obama Is A Terrorist Who Will Kill Millions, which I'm sure is a sincerely held belief, if a crazy one.

Stick Figures and Stunted Growth as Warring Syria Goes Hungry

 ' "The very unlikelihood of hunger in Syria galls those suffering from it. “It’s very strange to know that the food is only five minutes away from you,” said Qusai Zakarya, a spokesman for a rebel council in Moadhamiya, who said he recently spoke on the phone to a friend who was eating a cheeseburger in the wealthy neighborhood of Mezze just a few miles away.

Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers and residents say that signs at checkpoints around Moadhamiya and other Damascus suburbs read, “Kneel or starve.” '

Syrian Army Repels Armed Rebels’ Attack on Restaurant in Reef Ariha

 'The bodies of the killed militants are still left on the ground in the region.

 The armed rebels have repeatedly tried to return to the scene to take back those wounded in the area, but have failed.'

 So the Iranian official news service boasts that their Syrian allies have no respect for the rules of war allowing for the evacuation of wounded and the bodies of the dead.

 I guess this must be a strategically important restaurant. Fars does seem to use the headline, "Syrian [government forces] Repel [opposition forces] Attack", quite a lot.

Not Anymore

 "So many girls have died in the kitchen, doing the dishwashing. I don't want to die cheap."

The Arab Revolutions and the Renegade Tariq Ali

 'Saying “we do not know” if “the regime used gas or other chemical weapons” makes Tariq Ali not merely a renegade but a clown, an ass, a world-class buffoon, and an enemy of “the courageous citizens of Syria who started the uprising“ he lauds and pretends to support. Not one of those citizens had any doubt over whose sarin was unleashed on the hapless women and children of Ghouta that morning.

 If Ali wants to continue peddling fictions about Arabs, he should stick to writing his novels. Leave politics to the revolutionaries.'

“It’s better if unarmed civilians surrender”

 'In audio recordings obtained by NOW, Assad's favorite nun [Mother Agnes Mariam] shows how she convinced starved civilians – many of whom have now been arrested – to leave besieged Moadamiyah.

 The US State Department has evidently not flinched in offering this humble, pot-smoking emissary of God a visa, a courtesy that for some reason it did not choose to extend to Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times photojournalist who was badly injured covering the siege of Baba Amr and who has recently published a book about the last days of his colleague Marie Colvin’s life that he’d like to tell Americans about.'

 I'd say the pot-smoking might be one thing in her favour. She's also the source for the Russian claim that the rebels gassed themselves in August. Practising Catholics might be embarrassed that she's in communion with the universal church.

Please Help Stop Assad

Statue of Jesus erected on Syrian hilltop

 There's a video circulating, a genuine one, of Syrian rebels smashing up a statue of the Virgin Mary. The majority of Syrians who want to see Assad overthrown object to this sectarian nonsense, but the longer the rebels go under-equipped for the battle against a modern state, which with Russian help, starves and bombs its citizens, the more the jihadists will dominate and destroy the revolution.

 Anyway, this: Statue of Jesus erected on Syrian hilltop*
seems like incitement, but still, it's probably a good idea to welcome it as a symbol to Christians that they will be safe when Assad falls. Though now having seen the comparison with the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio, maybe it would make a better spectacle if another piece of brutalism were smashed up, even if not politically advisable.

*'Russians have been a driving force behind the statue project. The Kremlin is the chief ally of the embattled Assad, and the Orthodox churches in Russia and Syria have close ties.

 Ghadban, who is Syrian-Russian and lives in both countries, said he hoped the statue, which was inspired by Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue, would in turn inspire Syria's Christians.'

Israel 'carries out Latakia air strike'

 'Even if Assad acknowledges this attack took place, he's unlikely to be able to anything about it. As the civil war in his country grinds on, he's unable to respond forcefully, militarily, to Israel.'

 Remember when Israeli attacks were going to provoke the Russians into setting off WW3? Or how Assad was going to use more weapons more often if there was any foreign intervention?



 I might get back tomorrow to some thoughts about how its response to Syria will define the left for the next generation. I wasn't going to post this piece by Terry Glavin, as I worry that his support for America's military adventures for the last ten years undermines the case he would make for intervening in Syria, but it is informative.

 'In the Syrian reality, people know who is against us and who is for us. Jabhat al Nusra is helpful to us,” Eshami told me during a conversation at an out-of-the-way coffee house here the other day. “I have met with them personally to find the truth. The United States says they are terrorists, but the truth is different. Everybody knows that the western world will do nothing to help us. The people of Syria are sure now that the western world is of no use to them at all.'
[http://www.ottawacitizen.com/…/Column+tr…/9109150/story.html]

Forget Democrazy, Give Me Safe Borders

 Sharmine Narwani, who sometimes appears on the TV as an accredited journalist, is an unabashed apologist for tyranny.

 'When Egyptian General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ejected an elected government, he understood that lawlessness in the Sinai and calls for Jihad in Syria, Libya and elsewhere would erode the Egyptian state. When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called for reinforcement to fight the tide of foreign fighters flooding Syria’s borders, this was a rallying call for Russia, Hezbollah and Iran to protect their own borders.

 Dictators? Tyrants? Maybe, maybe not. But also perhaps the last buffers against the destruction of the nation-state.'

Hanging Dates Under Aleppo's Citadel

 'The people in my film are [Muslim]. If you look at the names of all the brigades, they're all [Muslim]. But they're not Al-Qaeda or Nusra or whatever. If you listen, they're trying to declare and hide at the same time. "I'm not against someone drinking alcohol in his own home. But it's haram.' 'I'm not the one to prosecute him. That's the government's job." They want to be just but they cannot hide being Muslim. If I were to make a film suggesting that these fighters are communists, then I'd be fabricating things.

 They want the world to understand that ... every time you say "jihad" you don't mean Al-Qaeda. That whenever you say, "I don't drink alcohol," you don't mean "I'm violent." They want to be rewarded for their moderation.

 If you don't listen to them, eventually they will be lured by Al-Qaeda-like organizations. They have lots of money. They can secure services for people, but in return, they'll make their lives hell.

 "I'm biased toward the revolution." Soueid said. "I hope I'll always be able to defend the revolution as I do now." '
[http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/…/documenting_a_revolution_…]

Syrian Brotherhood criticises attempts to discredit opposition

 'Those concerned by your revolution have learned their lessons and believe that killing the revolution from its birth will be to their benefit. Dear Syrians, I assure you, no matter how many assurances you give them, they will never accept your democracy project, not the Americans not the Russians not the Europeans nor the Iranians. They do not object to your revolution but to you, to your humanity and to your democracy, liberation and justice.'

 The Muslim Brotherhood may not have covered itself in glory with its level of leadership in the Syrian revolution, but that they are talking about revolution when many socialists are not, conveys a certain cubic capacity.

Were We Wrong about Syria?

 'We should have provided political and military support for the first generation of rebels—the “good guys” who described themselves as secular democrats. We should have done this before jihadi militants flocked into the country and before Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah were fully engaged. We should have aimed at a rapid transition to a non-sectarian state, where the Sunni majority would come into its own but religious minorities—Alawites, Druse, and Christians—would not feel threatened.'

Starvation in Syria: a war tactic

 'At an army checkpoint that separates government-held central Damascus from eastern suburban towns earlier this month, a thin, teenage boy on a bicycle circled a soldier and begged to be allowed to take a bag of pita bread, a staple food, into the eastern suburbs. The soldier refused but the boy kept begging for "just one loaf".

 The soldier finally shouted: "I'm telling you, not a single morsel is allowed in there. I don't make the rules. There are those bigger than me and you who make the rules and they're watching us right now. So go back home." The soldier, visibly upset, exhaled quietly and deeply when the boy slipped out of sight.'

Profiles in Politics: Senator Lindsey Graham

 'We need to be backing people who would replace Assad who are not radical Islamists and that’s most Syrians.'

 There are many things I'd disagree with Lindsey Graham about, but this isn't one of them.

The land of broken promises

 'There is no other solution than go back to square one: arm the FSA with weapons that can stop airplanes and long distance missiles.

 The West has been defeated on the Russian diplomatic chessboard. After the chemical weapons deal Assad feels victorious. Most of the world’s attention is now going to the so-called terrorists and is hardly reporting his atrocities anymore. Assad is more than happy that we will try to find a political solution on the same chessboard he and his Russian friends have won the last game.'

What's going on in Syria is about a lot more than chemical weapons

CraigSummers >ATrueFinn
27 October 2013 12:51pm

 ".....The US and UK
have a history of wars of aggression and violent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrations. It is amazing how you defend these countries......"

 'Changing the subject is fine - if you have nothing to counter the argument for your support of Syria. Your hatred of the US/UK is not an argument on why you support Assad - because there are no good arguments. If all of this was happening in Bahrain where the US has a military base, you would be beside yourself condemning the US and their complicity in the murder of people in Bahrain to protect US interests. Instead nothing about Russia. Nothing about Hezbollah/Lebanon. Nothing about Iran.

 Your problem is that the US has had absolutely nothing to do with the war in Syria so you bring up irrelevant history. Anti-Americanism is really easy to distinguish from somewhat who is really concerned about "crackdowns" on innocent civilians.'

Give Syria peace, not a process

Rime Allaf:

 'Real friends of Syria would break Assad's siege, neutralise his air power, and convince Syrian people and revolutionaries alike that there is hope in Geneva, that a transition is imminent, that the nightmare is ending. Anything less than that merely pushes Syrians into further despair, and the region into even greater instability.'

Strolling the Champs-Élysées with 120,000 Syrian Refugees

 This is quite sad.

 'There is a school at Za’atari, but it’s sparsely attended and many kindergarteners have forgotten the alphabet. They want to play “revolutionary games” instead. “My five-year-old tells me every day that he dreams of carrying a machine gun,” she said, “and going back to Syria.” '

Is it Too Late To Do Anything?

 'In the end the much maligned and often ridiculed Sarah Palin may be speaking accurately for what is left of a morally hollowed-out West when she suggests that we avert our gaze from the horror of Syria and “let Allah sort it out.” The Obama administration’s version of the “leave it to God” approach characteristically reflects lawyerly deliberation and close attention to strategic communication.'

 Also much of the hollowed-out Left.

Rebels find care packages destined for top army officers

 'The captured supplies are a stark indication that the regime’s army, which is making gains elsewhere in the country, has all but abandoned such isolated posts and their troops to their fate.'

Ghouta Residents Live in Fear of More Chemical Attacks

 'The paramedic who designed these makeshift gas masks makes them in yellow to persuade local children that they are dressing up as the cartoon character Sponge Bob Squarepants. Abu Salah is unconcerned about the international community’s shifting policy.

 “With no electricity or TV news, it’s easy for us not to care what decisions are being made, and to focus on our work. No one really cares about us,” he said.'

Malek Jandali Ya Allah (Oh God)

 Malek Jandali: 

 “I thought: what can I do? How can I help? All I have is music.

 When the world abandoned the Syrians, forsook them, they had nothing left to do – they went back to their creator, and asked ‘Ya Allah, please help us.’ This song was a way to translate their chant through my orchestra and piano into a universal language.”

On Monsterphilia and Assad

 Muhammad Idrees Ahmad:

 'If a boy cries “wolf!” while being set-upon by a wolf pack, then fixating on his propensity for lies will not conjure away the threat. Memory can distort sight; it can’t override it. Where skepticism hardens into cynicism and dogma precludes context, ignorance and apathy parade as virtues. Bromwich and the anti-imperialists forget that in Iraq only the possession of unconventional weapons was being alleged; in Syria they have actually been used. In Iraq pretexts had to be manufactured for intervention; in Syria their abundance has done little to encourage action. It is one thing to distrust the government and quite another to extend this skepticism to the supposed objects of its humanitarian concern.'
 
 It is no accident that Syrians have received such little sympathy. Western citizens usually sympathize with perfect victims; moral ambiguity dissuades many.
 
 'The threat of a US intervention was momentary; it passed. But the people who had shown little concern for protecting Syrians from Assad went to unusual lengths to protect Assad from the US. Though only a handful openly embraced Assad, many opted for a subtler approach, focusing exclusively on the opposition, caricaturing it, amplifying its failings and erasing its suffering. They manufactured doubt to exculpate the regime. Uri Avnery has derided this tendency as “leftist monsterphilia” – one that, in times of crises, turns otherwise sensible people into apologists for tyrants.'

Explosion near the airport

 'An explosion near the airport in Syria's capital, Damascus, has been followed by a blackout in parts of the country, state media say.'

Regime Attempted Ground Invasion Of Moadamiyyah Via Humanitarian Route

 “At least we managed to embarrass the U.S. government into saying something,” Zakarya said. “But it’s not enough. We can’t print out that statement and eat it.”

 The starvation is the second story here. The first is that those who entered the town, including nuns from the same monastery as régime propagandist Mother Agnes, may have told the government troops where to attack.

Debating Syria

 Corey Oakley:

 'The revolution is undeniably messy, contradictory, ideologically and socially variegated. Given the history of Syria and the region, it is utopian to think it could be anything but. Nonetheless, for all its weaknesses, the Syrian opposition has fractured the regime to an extent that virtually no one believed possible. The regime has lost territorial control of large swathes of the country, and faces both armed and civil opposition in almost all the areas it still controls. If this is simply a “popular struggle” and not a revolution, it is a non-revolution of a quite unique kind.'

A poster in Yabroud, Damascus: We want a Syria like this ______. Not this ______.

 'This family has been living in utter misery for close to 3 years. They survived everything Assad threw at them. From gas attacks, to daily shelling, to murderous raids and of course now, the starvation. Yet today, their luck ran out.

 In the suburbs of Damascus some may call this family “lucky”. They all had their heads blown off together. The parents did not have to watch their child die. The boy did not have to become an orphan and starve. Welcome to Syria. The way Assad always wanted it to be.'
[http://therevoltingsyrian.com/post/63005497675/a-poster-in-yabroud-damascus-we-want-a-syria]

Syria snipers 'shoot at pregnant women,' UK doctor claims

 "Who were these snipers, which side?"

 "I don't really know, but I would imagine, and I was told many times, that it was from the régime side, so presumably it's from the Assad government."

 You have to watch the video to find out this bit of the truth, shorn of that, this story can seem to back the narrative that they are all as bad as each other. The people of Syria are fighting to overthrow a horrible dictatorship.

Reporters’ nightmare

 'The difficulty of reporting in rebel areas has let the regime tell its own narrative.

 Television footage of the relatively calm centre of the capital, Damascus, makes the regime look more in control, while recent rebel advances in the north are barely reported. The government recently facilitated reports on the presence of ruthless Islamist fighters in Maaloula, a town of Christians, whom the regime depicts as under threat from the rebels. Meanwhile, thousands of Syrian civilians mass in camps in the north, unseen on Western television screens, as they flee from salvoes of regime rockets.'