Is a key Nato member plotting a fake terrorist attack to justify war on Syria?

 No.

 'The authenticity of the recording has not been verified, but nor have I heard any evidence to suggest that it is not authentic. It is not clear when this conversation took place, but its participants included intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, army deputy chief of staff Yasar Guler, and Foreign Ministry under secretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, and there is no doubt about their intentions.'

 If you have no verification, how can you be sure of their intentions?

 Stop The War's intro on their Facebook page is more ludicrously conspiratorial:

 'A fake terrorist attack by a Nato member to justify war on Syria? No reporting of that in the media's fairytale version of Western foreign policy.'

 Pot. Kettle. Black.

 'No matter how many times the consequences of ‘humanitarian interventions’ fail to live up to their expectations."

 Like the one that hasn't taken place in Syria.

This Haunting Photo Of A Stunned Syrian Girl Embodies Assad's Strategy

 'The nails and other shrapnel in the barrels pierce the city and mangle its people. There are a myriad of horrifying photos. The little girl, along with the distraught man in the background, depict the brutality of the crude devices while sparing the gore.'

Syria seen through the eyes of a British journalist and a Dutch jihadist

 Paul Woodward:

 'When a veteran reporter makes this kind of observation, even though he does not identify his source in any way at all, there will be many readers who treat Cockburn’s word (and thus that of an unidentified “observer”) as definitive. In so doing, they ignore the fact that this characterization of the Assad regime’s opponents perfectly mirrors the regime’s own propaganda.

 One can treat Assad’s claim that he is fighting terrorists as a statement of fact. Or, one can treat it as a cynical and effective piece of political messaging — messaging one of whose purposes is to corral some sympathy from those in the West who, paradoxically, both vehemently reject the military adventurism that the neoconservatives initiated after 9/11 and yet also fully embrace a neoconservative view of unified terrorism.'

Syria: Unlawful Air Attacks Terrorize Aleppo

 That's actual terrorism, that is.

Return to Homs at the Brixton Ritzy

 'It removes what director Talal Derki called “the political soap opera” of the civil war, leaving us with the uneasy feeling that Syria’s suffering is the responsibility of us all.'

The fall of the Syrian regime and Lebanon

 This is quite a cheerful outlook.

 'There is a joke which we used to tell one another as children and it goes like this: every morning, a dog used to have fun by chasing a goat. He would chase the goat until it was tired of running and eventually leave it alone and go about its way. One morning, the dog begin to chase the goat as usual; however, that day the goat decided that it would attack and it began to chase the dog head first, pointing its horns at it. The dog was surprised and began to stutter in disbelief, "Has this goat gone crazy?"

 The Assad regime fell the day that the "Syrian goat" went crazy and decided that it no longer wanted to play the Assad dog's game. The regime lost its ability to terrorise the Syrian people when the people of Daraa refused to submit to its guns. The "bank of terrorism" went bankrupt and its currency fell. This stands as a reminder to all of us that the survival of any authoritarian regime is the result of a complicated relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. It is not the terrorism practised by the Assad regime or the Syrian army's presence in Lebanon alone that ensured the regime's survival, but the presence of several parties in both Syria and Lebanon, which gave to and took from the regime much to its advantage and benefit.'

What for the future of tourism?

 'I don’t think you could find such a depth of history and culture anywhere else in the Middle East. The socialist leanings of Syria's dictatorship meant that they had kept out a lot of the trappings of modernisation in terms of fast food restaurants and lots of other associated things, so it was in a bit of a time warp – no McDonald’s, no Starbucks.'

 I don't bother with McDonald's or Starbucks either (Burger King used to have a very good beanburger), but I wouldn't describe this exclusion as socialist, more a way of protecting the régime's own capital accumulation without having US business take a large slice. Blander forms of capitalism aren't socialism.

 This is interesting though, showing how the ruling class can ride out the war on Syria's poor, but that the processes of capitalism can't stay on a war footing indefinitely. My hope is that when the next major defeat for the régime happens, those saying there is no point in continuing with a government that cannot govern the country will help put it out of its victims misery.

 'The owner of the company we used to work with said,"I was fed up. It was much better for me to go back to my own country that I love, even though it’s got great problems." And of course there’s no work, but he was at the top of the tree, so they probably have good savings that they can use to live off. I think he spends his days now going horse riding.'

The Syrian Opposition Coalition is not a lost cause

 'Our Free Syrian Army forces are expected to uphold international humanitarian law and the laws of war; for Assad's forces, the opposite is true and is indeed their modus operandi. All too often the media confuses the public by conflating all forces fighting the regime under the banner “rebels”. Yet the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria recently differentiated our “moderate nationalist forces” as separate from the extremist groups. We oversee the Free Syrian Army, which has been defending Syrian civilians and which is not only taking on Assad’s forces, but fighting against the extremists, Iran-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, and Iraqi sectarian militias.'

 'Our' and 'oversee' might be over-stating the case, but the rest is sound.

U.S. and U.N. are all talk and no action

 'The Obama administration is not lacking in options to stop the ongoing, horrific crimes against humanity in Syria. What it lacks is the will to act. It could order the Assad regime to authorize border crossings by aid convoys — something Ms.Power said would require only “a stroke of the pen” — or face the same airstrikes Mr.Obama threatened last summer. It could target blockade points with drone or missile strikes. It could provide rebels with the air defense weapons they need to stop helicopters from dropping barrel bombs on civilian housing, hospitals and schools. It could disable the bases used by regime aircraft.'

Qadri Jamil

 "There are some in the West who support this new fascism. I prefer those, who like in Spain in the 1930s, fought the fascists."

 What's funny about this is that RT give Qadri Jamil the title, "opposition politician". This is who the Russians think should be representing the opposition at peace talks, so they and the government can co-operate in fighting the terrorists. And the fascists, who I think are the same people.

 "Do you think Assad should step down, or would that leave Syria at the mercy of the country's enemies?"
 "I don't know why this is a question at the moment."

Nigel Farage claims Syrian rebels carried out chemical attack last summer

 'Only the Syrian and Russian governments suggest that the Syrian government did not fire chemical weapons at Ghouta.'

 And Nigel and sections of what used to be the Western Left.

 This, from an expert of Syrian Islamism, is worrying,

Thomas Pierret:

(1) 8/21 CW attack in Damascus was response to rebel inroads esp. in Jobar.
(2) today rebels are progressing in Jobar again and Syr amba to UN warns against false CW attack by rebels in Jobar.
(3) conclusion : Asad probably ready to use CW again to prevent rebels from reaching Abbassid square

Less of a Truce, More of a Military Occupation

 'Today, 90% of Talkalakh’s former residents are refugees or displaced. Even the rosy picture presented to the LA Times couldn’t conceal the fact that the town was largely empty of its inhabitants. There is a reason why Syrian refugees avoid the army as one would avoid a plague of zombies; bad things happen under a military occupation. Like so many other Syrian towns, cities and neighborhoods, Talkalakh was left devoid of inhabitants after the Syrian army moved in.'

 I began to notice when the régime recaptured neighbourhoods in Aleppo in late 2012 that the population never came back. You cannot rule if there is noone to rule.

No one controls the castle forever

 'History hasn’t come to an end in Syria. The damage to this magnificent fortress is testament to that. No one will control the Crac des Chevaliers forever.'

 Lindsey Hilsum has a piece on Channel 4 News tonight, I think about Homs, and they have a couple of other pieces on Syria, I don't know if they all on tonight.

 The reports have had some flashes of the truth that the problem in Syria is Assad, but especially the commentary has a lot of, "both sides have pounded the city", some rebel groups have been accused of", some Britons have gone to fight for jihad".

 Lindsey Hilsum points out that bombs have begun falling in the Alawite heartland of Lattakia because the government is losing it there.

Rebel general explains the Latakia battle

 "The Alawites on the coast are not our enemies—our disagreement with them is that they should have joined the revolution and spoken out against this brutal regime that is killing its people. But this won’t make us kill them—we fight only those who take up arms against us. There is no sectarianism in this revolution. Syria only has two sects: that of the regime and that of the revolution."

Syria: three years on – the people still want the fall of the regime

 'One of the great achievements of the Stop the War movement at its height was that it brought together Muslim and non-Muslims with organisations of the labour movement and broader progressive forces. Islamophobia in France that made demonstrations of this kind impossible there was rightly criticised by the British left at the time. But now we might ask: where then was the British left on Saturday 15 March?'

 There's a part about "military intervention" at the start that could do with being more to the point, and the attitude towards Banksy seems to be more that his With Syria piece is more making up for his earlier work, but it's good to see more people on the Left getting the point that those on the Left who don't support the Syrian revolution really aren't helping at all.

Spanish journalists freed in Syria after six-month ordeal

 'However, Syrian opposition and European officials say Isis can no longer command the influence it has had for much of the past year over parts of northern Syria.

 "As strong as they are in numbers, they have taken several strategic blows recently," one senior western official said. "They have been defeated in much of the north, and they will not be coming back there. The battle has been won. The regular opposition can now get back to fighting Assad." '

 That last line at the end is something that we never get from those worried about "intervention", whereby unwarranted fears that Barack Obama was going to re-enact the Iraq War or that he would be arming the very jihadists the regular rebels have been fighting, in reality meant that little pressure has been applied to enable the real revolutionaries in Syria to get the arms they need.

The Debunkation of Assadist media

 The Revolting Syrian has a new blog.

Help Syrians under siege

 'Here's my suggestion: Instead of sending video cameras to civilian rebels to film the carnage, or ambulances to take victims to gutted hospitals (the latest idea), the United States should get real. Send vetted rebel groups the heavy weapons they need to shoot down planes that bomb civilians, and to ensure that aid reaches the needy. Doing less makes us complicit in Assad's war crimes.'

Obama seeks to ease backlash over Syria

 'Saudi officials have grown particularly concerned about what they see as Obama's tepid response to the Syrian civil war and have pressed the US to allow them to play a direct role in sending the rebels the air defence systems known as manpads. While administration officials have previously ruled out that option, a senior official said it was being considered anew, in part because the US has developed deeper relationships with the rebels over the past year.'

 Despite the conventional view of the US as backing the rebels, they have been a block on the rebels getting the weapons they need to end the war. It is a shame that that the rebels still are in a position where they have to go cap in hand to empires and monarchies for help, but needs must.

"Please don’t cut my pajamas sir, they’re new"

 'This is what a little girl in Aleppo, Syria is telling the cameraman as he checks her wound. Assad’s forces dropped a barrel bomb (barrel packed with TNT and tossed from a helicopter) onto this girl.

 She goes on to say: “My mother was so happy today because I was able to walk” … referring to a previous operation she had to repair her legs from a previous bombing attack by the Assad regime.

 This is Syria. There are Syria’s children. This is the "life" they live under the Assad regime.'

Essential solidarity

 'The Syrian revolution is not dead, but its enemies grow stronger. The first is undoubtedly the killing machine of the regime.'

 I don't think the Assad régime is growing stronger, it is having to press-gang young men for its latest offensive, and the economy cannot stagger on indefinitely on a permanent war footing.

The Silent Enemy

 "How was Aleppo before you left?"

 "Barrels and scud missiles and people in the street."

Arab countries still at odds over Syria's Arab League seat

 'Prince Salman said ending the conflict in Syria "requires the change of balance of power on the ground and give the Syrian opposition the support they need." The Saudi senior official attributed his remarks to the failure of the international community to help the Syrian people in the face of Syrian regime's killing machine, specially following the collapse of Geneva II negotiations, held last January.'

 It is again a matter of embarrassment that it should be left to a prince of one of the most reactionary monarchies to say the right thing.

 The Arab League has agreed to seat the National Coalition of Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, which may help with diplomatically delegitimising the régime and empowering the forces of change.

Assad’s Killing Industry and the Role of Intellectuals

 Yassin Al Haj Saleh:

 'There is a systematic, calculating and disciplined thought process on how to kill detainees with the utmost care to cover up any real information about how they died.'

Steve Israel On Syria: It Won't Matter In 2014

 'Israel, a self-described hawkish Democrat, said that he was personally inclined to support a congressional resolution authorizing the use of force, provided that it was tailored to ensure that U.S. troops aren't actually deployed in Syria.'

 The idea that there was going to be a catastrophic American intervention, i.e. an Iraq-style invasion, was always a lie, and stopped the question being asked about what could be done to help Syrians facing a genocidal dictator.

Assad is already counting on soldiers still at school

 Fisk has lost it big time. Much like Assad, in reality. Byzantium may have endured, but Assad will not.

 'But the army won, and it is this increasingly formidable force – let us, of course, remember that the West claims war criminals are among them – that is the one institution in Syria upon which Assad must rely.

 Only a few months ago, the Free Syrian Army was trying to find an accommodation with the regime, sending middle men to Damascus to talk to representatives of the President. But the government abandoned such contacts when the FSA decided to grab at the American offer of more arms at Geneva.

 Qatar is just – slightly – beginning to allow its suspicion and contempt for Saudi Arabia to outweigh its enthusiasm for the war against Assad.

 With a Russian-Iranian-Qatari guarantee of “fair” elections in Syria – please hold your breath, readers – who better to rebuild Assad’s rubbled country than Iran and Russia, backed by Qatar’s wealth? Why, they could even invite the workers of Crimea to give them a hand…'

Insurgents Inflict Heavy Losses on Regime Across Country

 'Syria’s opposition has appealed to an Arab League summit for “sophisticated” weapons to the insurgency, supported by Saudi Arabia’s declaration of the need for a change in the military balance to “end the impasse” in the conflict.

 In contrast, United nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, insisted on an “end to the supply of arms to all parties” to encourage a “political solution” to the conflict.'

Syria: Blaming the Opposition

 'One may criticize the Obama administration's policy toward Syria on many levels. Yet the intelligence and knowledge of key administration officials is beyond reproach. They know that a failure of strategic communication on the part of Syria’s opposition is far from the top reason for the Assad regime’s survival.

 Yet, saying it is so is an essential facet of the “someone else’s civil war” thesis; it is a useful excuse for standing aside, writing checks for humanitarian assistance, and otherwise merely bearing witness to the twenty-first century’s premier humanitarian abomination to date. Blaming the victim, positing the rough moral equivalence of the parties, claiming that intervention would only make things worse, clinging to an all-or-nothing thesis by citing mass murder elsewhere and using the Iraq catastrophe as a one-size-fits-all template—these are all excuses for translating “never again” to “well, maybe this once." '

Young Syrians bring Lear to life at a refugee camp

 ' “I seek to revive laughter and joy among children to help them express themselves,” said Bulbul, who was in several hit soap operas at home before falling foul of President Bashar Assad’s regime and fleeing into exile.

 “I seek to reproduce their childhood, which has been destroyed by war.” '

Nasrallah sent message to reassure Israel

 “You can tell the Israelis that Lebanon’s southern borders are the safest place in the world because all of our attention is focused on what is happening in Syria.”

 Remember last year when the Russians were going to provide Assad with missiles to stop the non-existent US invasion? And Israel were going to attack the Russian navy to stop it? Some people were gullible enough to fall for that baloney.

The Syrian Revolution and the Role of the Intellectual

 Dr. Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm:

 'I think what is happening in Syria today is, first of all, an overwhelming popular Intifada, in the classical sense of the word Intifada as invented by the Palestinian people, which was then forced to militarize. Any uprising against a military tyranny transforms the forces of the striking army to an occupation army, in the full sense of the term, which destroys the stone and the country as well as kills people without expense.

Second of all, what is happening in Syria today is also a revolution in that the popular Intifada in Syria seeks restoration of the republic through the toppling of the old hereditary regime that is worn-out in all its institutions, and to establish an alternative system of governance. Isn’t this adequate to recognize that what is taking place in Syria today is a real revolution?'

Left Orientalism - Syria and the Left

Sophia Deeg:

 '15/03/2014 marked the third anniversary of the commencement of the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime. In Berlin, there was a modest rally predominantly of Syrian supporters of the revolution on this occasion. In the speeches repeatedly sounded the disappointment and incomprehension at the lack of support from the "international community".Especially in the days before had the UN, NGOs and the media, as helpless as the pile of demonstrators complained about the humanitarian disaster that puts everything that has gone before in the shade and even the professionals of the management of apocalyptic proportions speechless.

 What activities has the party unfolds the Left to support the revolution in Syria? At any rate, no representative was to be seen at the rally. Perhaps no one had time. Or perhaps the Left Party is as helpless as an elderly passerby who asked: "Well, what can we do?" '

Sweeping Advances Made by the Revolutionary Fighters in Syria

 'The forces of Hilal's son (each spoiled Assad family member has their own gang of thugs, seemingly) furiously roamed Latakia's streets after his death, angrily shooting at anything that moves, and even allegedly fighting with Assad's forces.

 In addition, Assad's forces have surrounded the Sunni neighborhoods of Soliaba and Tabyat in Latakia city in response to the killings, sparking fears of sectarian massacres in retaliation. This vile regime has shown itself incapable of anything but violence and hatred, as well as irrationality and a lack of logic. Turkey aided Syrians, so as a result, Syrians must pay for that with their lives.

 However, we are sincerely hoping and praying that this will not turn out to be the case. Despite the constant media lies claiming that Assad is winning, the revolutionaries are advancing all across Syria.'

The Destruction of Syria: In Memory of Edward Said

 'America has systematically led the world away from the Syrian massacre. The handling of Assad’s chemical weapons is telling. In the hesitation that led to the policing of chemical weapons in Syria, the US forged an agreement with Russia that in the words of Al-Haj Saleh «punished the weapon and renewed the mandate of the killer … continued at Geneva 2 where the regime is being instated as a crucial partner in any solution for Syria».

 For us who sit in the West, we are politically and ethically responsible for averting our eyes from the Syrian tragedy. Our behavior has aided Assad to stay in power, which in turn greatly strengthened Islamist control over the revolution. We owe it to Syria to question the wisdom of our politicians, and the need of our governments to maintain Assad in his seat.'

Turkey downs Syria military jet 'in airspace violation'

 That's nice. One plane that to put it crudely, won't be killing any more Syrian children. Turkey's prime minister is a mad bloke who is trying to ban twitter, but isn't a serial killer, as far as I'm aware.

Note 5/3/25, my assessment of President Erdogan of Turkey has changed since this was written.

The killing of a soldier and his six-year-old son paints a chilling picture of Syria’s war

 'By chance, among the military mourners was Colonel Omar Shaaban.'

 I wonder if he is any relation to Bouthaina Shaaban, the régime's chief propagandist. This is like stories about cycling that ignore the hundreds mown down by car drivers, to focus on one pedestrian who stepped out in front of a bike.

The General’s View

 How low Fisk has fallen. He gives a coded message to his left wing readers that he's not totally taken by the general, "And that, of course, is exactly what the British Army used to say in Northern Ireland when it was also searching people's homes." But it is just a thin veneer over his peddling of every lie the general tells. And there must be a foreign conspiracy against Syria because Robert Fisk has seen Belgian weapons in government hands in Aleppo. He is no longer a journalist, unlike those his friends in the Syrian government have kidnapped and murdered.

The West's kneejerk peaceniks have some explaining to do

 I'm uneasy about the politics of condemnation, and while Bloodworth may be opposed in legacy to the Iraq war, many of those he has politically associated with were gung-ho then, lending credibility to the peaceniks' justification for their cautious approach. Mind you, this is bang on, and a truth often deliberately hidden.

 'This isn’t "collateral damage" either, to use the ugly euphemism. This is the result of a deliberate war being waged against the civilian population of Syria by the thuggish Ba’athist regime. The Syrian government’s position is to make life for those living in opposition areas as difficult as possible. This is why it has been bombing and shelling civilians, denying them access to UN-ordered cross-border assistance and blocking vaccination efforts in opposition held areas.'

Daraa province locked in stalemate

 'In February, as rumors circulated that Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and others would redouble efforts to arm Syria’s rebels with heavier weaponry, local groups announced a slew of unifications. But thus far, says Bardam, rebels are still waiting.

 “Obviously, the main reason [rebels have yet to advance] is that no new weapons have arrived,” he said.

 Instead, they make do with what they can make or capture. Rebel groups “have what are considered ‘individual weapons,’ in addition to whatever they can capture from regime forces,” he said.'

Syria’s secular uprising has been hijacked by jihadists

 'Why has the Syrian uprising, whose early supporters demanded that tyranny should be replaced by a secular, non-sectarian, law-bound and democratic state, so totally failed to achieve these aims?'

 Because Assad has plenty of weapons, but only the Islamic factions have had a regular supply of weapons. Cockburn continues the fantasy that the solution is to end the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Peace will come when Assad is gone, but that's not on Cockburn's agenda for Syrians at all. At least he's not among the genocide deniers, though his use of the kidnap of Razan Zaitouneh to discredit the whole idea of armed resistance is unreasonable.

Ordinary people remain the real victims

 This is a nasty piece, writing off the rebels as "hate-filled fighter(s)" and "various groups that want to kill each other".

Desperate children pretend they go to school, says Latakia housewife

 'This year, we reopened a school with the help of the rebels after the regime destroyed all the schools in our area.'

Syrians must not let the extremists undermine their revolution

 'The negligible support that moderate rebels received from the international community, often in the form of nonlethal aid such as communications equipment and night-vision goggles, at a time when Gulf donors were busy supplying cash and weapons to more extreme factions, proved another crucial factor in the ongoing marginalization of moderate elements from the scene, allowing for the effective hijacking of the revolution by extremists.'

WH orders Syrian embassy and consulates shuttered

 'It’s possible that this report from UN human-rights investigators could have prompted this, but it’s just as condemnatory on Assad’s enemies as the Assad regime.'

 It's not actually. ISIS have committed lesser crimes than Assad, and against actual rebels, not against Assad.

'Jihadist rebels have carried out mass executions of detainees in Syria, UN human rights investigators say. The commission of inquiry’s latest report documents several incidents blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Government forces are meanwhile accused of sharply increasing their use of indiscriminate weapons, such as barrel-bombs, against civilians. …'

 This is on point though:

 'Some might find it a surprise that we still have diplomatic relations at all with Assad, but that’s been a relic of the initial conclusion by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that Assad was a “reformer.” Even after demanding Assad’s resignation, freezing his assets, and threatening to bomb Assad’s forces for crossing the “red line” of chemical-weapons use, the US and Syria have maintained diplomatic relations. Suddenly closing off consular services seems like small potatoes in comparison.'

Syria: The Battle Beyond

 'Educated, middle-class Syrian exiles share their thoughts on the revolution and their determination to return home.

 "I talk a lot about Ghouta because I love it." '

Revolutionary Left Current in Syria: Establishment of the “People’s Liberation Faction” to commemorate the third anniversary of the Syrian Revolution

 'We see that our revolution is part of the struggles of the global toiling masses, of the oppressed and of the marginalized everywhere for freedom, equality, social justice and socialism. We see it in the struggle of the Palestinian people to recover all its land and rights, in the struggle of the peasants without land and labor in Latin America, in the strikes of the miners in South Africa and in other countries, in the struggle of the masses in Europe against neoliberalism and capitalist globalization, in the struggle of the oppressed workers of Southeast Asia, in the struggle of women for their rights and equality throughout the world...

 The time has come, at that particular moment of the revolution, for the revolutionary left current to play its role in the popular armed struggle through the establishment of the People’s liberation faction without giving up for a single moment all forms of peaceful mass struggle that allow us to confront both the violent fascist regime and the reactionary counter-revolutionary forces. This is the road for the victory of the popular revolution, in rooting its nature in democracy and socialism from below, in defending the immediate and general interests of the popular classes, in securing the independence of the will of the people from any imperialist or regional intervention from any foreign power, and in recovering our occupied territories of the Golan by all means possible.'



Note 4/3/25, their armed group was stopped at a Jabhat al-Nusra checkpoint in Aleppo, refused to surrender their arms, lost one of their members in a firefight, and disbanded.

Syrians mark uprising anniversary with arts festival

 'Matar acknowledged the risk of holding public events in a town that still comes under shelling, but said the festival was an important "demonstration from Syrians to the world that the revolution is still a revolution".'

Why Yabroud Fell

 'Russia, which is now occupying parts of Ukraine, has torpedoed every effort by the international community to prevent "foreign intervention" in Syria, the type of foreign intervention that is unpalatable to Western leftists and not to be confused with the foreign intervention of Russia in Ukraine or Iran in Syria. But that is alright because the West is backing these rebels according to the conspiracy theorists, and they are being told to cut off people's heads and incite sectarianism, not the sectarianism of a regime that shells mosques and slits the throats of children in Sunni villages.'

Britain to tackle big rise in Syrian refugee girls forced to marry

 We could provide refuge and jobs. Crazy idea I know. I don't know how true these figures are, but I know that the reason there are millions of refugees is because Assad is deliberately making them so to stay in some sort of power. And Britain appears to be doing nothing to change that. There was a guy on Inside Syria on al-Jazeera who suggested that sanctions against those with banking links to those fueling conflict now being considered over Russia's actions in Ukraine could be transferred to the Syria situation. There is a question of hypocrisy, Cameron was just this week promising to defend Britain's arms exporting business.

How Syria’s rebels lost the plot

 'The higher profile of the jihadists was much in the interests of the government, which had long claimed that the opposition was dominated by al-Qa’ida (true to the spirit of Middle East conspiracy theories, the opposition then claimed that Isis was in league with the government, asserting, against much evidence to the contrary, that the Syrian army and Isis seldom fought each other).'

 Cockburn and Assad are the conspiracy theorists. Cockburn has claimed consistently that the insurgency was predominantly Islamic radicals fighting a sectarian war (on behalf of the West and the Gulf Co-operation Council, of course) all along, whatever the evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that the régime has backed away from any fight with ISIS [http://claysbeach.blogspot.co.uk/…/memo-isis-assad-regime-f…]

 'By the end of 2012 it was clear that the rebels could not win without full-scale foreign military intervention. But to many, this was not obvious at the time because government forces pulled back from outlying positions and concentrated on holding strategic areas. A problem for the opposition was that the whole purpose of their exiled movement was to provoke a Libyan-type intervention.'

 Two more lies, the rebels wanted arms to finish the job themselves, not to rely on a foreign invasion, and as they had fought the régime to standstill with virtually no weapon supplies, it is not at all clear that granting those requests would not bring an end to the war and victory.

 'Its main tactic is to seal off rebel-held enclaves and bombard them with artillery and from the air, so that people are forced to flee. This is hardly a way to win the hearts and minds of the population, but the rebels have not found an answer to it.'

They have, it's the anti-aircraft weapons that Cockburn denies would have any effect.

 'In Syria the opposition has already been fighting its own bloody civil war since 3 January. This tends to discredit all the armed opposition and is, in any case, unlikely to produce a clear winner.'

The rebels take on the al-Qaida elements, and they are simply discrediting themselves. Pathetic from Cockburn.

 'President Assad remains ruler of a ruined land and does not have the resources to win a decisive victory. But unless the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies are prepared to fight a long war in order to exhaust the government in Damascus, there is no reason he should not stay in power.'

Quite the opposite. As Assad can no longer rule Syria, he remains eternally a burden to his allies. It was suggested on al-Jazeera's Inside Syria today that the prospect of Assad re-taking the Qalamoun mountains and prolonging the war may finally induce the Saudis the provide heavy weaponry to the Free Syrian Army. It is to the world's shame that it is left to the most reactionary state to do the right thing.

Aleppo is now rubble, after waves of bombing

 'Nobody knows why the regime chooses this makeshift device – a crude container packed with up to half a ton of TNT and shrapnel – normally just unloaded from the back of helicopters. It may be it is running short of its Russian-made missiles, or that it wants to save them for military rather than easy civilian targets.

 But the group calculates that 4,000 people have been killed, of which 2,600 have been identified. Others, like Mr Ali's neighbours, were simply incinerated. At one point in January, up to 30 barrels were dropping a day. The suburbs hit are a roll-call of the poorer, Sunni Muslim districts, previously a magnet for people from the countryside seeking work.'

The revolution goes on until Assad is out

 'Even as the uprising turned into a popular revolution, and even as the brutality of the Assad regime increased exponentially, the Syrian people remained peaceful, waiting for the world to take action, for responsibility to protect to be applied by the international community. Syrians organized themselves into local committees, they established solidarity and aid networks, and they documented Assad’s savage repression by uploading thousands of documented films and photos on the Internet, waiting for help to come. But it never came.

 It was inevitable that Syrians would reluctantly be pushed into self-defense months later, joining thousands of heroic Syrian soldiers who had defected rather than obey Assad’s shoot-to-kill orders. Even though their light weapons were never going to protect them against Assad’s tanks, helicopters, jets and even ballistic missiles, all aimed repeatedly at civilians populations all over Syria, the Free Syrian Army valiantly tried to protect their compatriots and to defeat this bloodthirsty regime.

 Nothing could save them from Assad’s missiles and barrel bombs. Nothing could save them from barbaric torture until death in his dungeons. And nothing could save them from being gassed to death in their sleep when Assad unleashed his chemical weapons on them.'