The US Strategy In Syria Is A Complete Mess

 'The United States cannot organize and regiment the entire opposition, but it can back any faction that retakes areas from ISIS. The only way to motivate the rebels to do so is to openly support their justified stance against Assad remaining in power.

 Develop a strategy to remove Assad via diplomacy, information messaging, and military/economic power. The longer he is in place, the longer Syria will be divided. Once Assad goes, it will be possible to put the pieces of Syria back together again.'

The Abdication of Moral Responsibility

 'There’s no denying Assad’s extraordinary brutality: Since the Syrian government turned over its chemical weapons, its most notorious weapon has been the barrel bomb — an oil drum or similar container filled with high explosives and metal fragments. Syria’s air force typically drops these bombs from a helicopter hovering at high altitudes, to avoid anti-aircraft fire. From that height, it is impossible to target with any precision. The barrel bomb simply tumbles to earth, making its dreaded swishing sound as its contents shift back and forth, until it hits the ground and detonates.

Barrel bombs are so inaccurate that the Syrian military does not dare use them near the front lines, for fear of hitting its own troops. Rather, it drops them on areas held by rebel groups, knowing that they will destroy apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, and other civilian institutions. Some civilians who have not fled the country have moved their families near the front line, preferring to brave snipers and artillery rather than the horror of the barrel bombs.

This, then, is the new banality of evil. When the Syrian government attacked civilians with chemical weapons, the United Nations Security Council pressured Assad to stop and to surrender his weapons. But as the Syrian government kills countless more civilians by indiscriminate attacks with conventional weapons, the Security Council, blocked by Russia, has largely stood on the sidelines. A number of states have condemned the slaughter, but have done little more to generate pressure to end it.

This selective concern is a gift to extremist recruiters who portray themselves as the only ones willing to stand up to Assad’s atrocities. Simply attacking the Islamic State is not going to end its appeal — a broader concern with protecting Syrian civilians is required.'

Mobilization efforts on the rise in Syria’s war of attrition

[Pictured: A young Kurdish girl in Amouda denounces the PYD for behaving like the Syrian regime]

 Given a chance, and Syrians choose the revolution. We are many, they are few.

 ' “There are fighters who defect from the FSA and join the hard-liners,” he said. “But there are also cases when Nusra Front [Syrian] fighters defect and join FSA-aligned groups, because they end up becoming suspicious of what Nusra is up to, and their priority is to fight the regime.”

He said the FSA militias continue to be hampered by the low salaries that they pay, meaning their fighters regularly face the temptation to join the better-financed Islamists. For White, the regime faces the “fundamental problem that it is a minority regime with minority allies, whose willingness to keep paying the ‘butcher’s bill’ is uncertain.” '

Syria: Civilians living under the constant fear of sniper fire

 'Civilians in many parts of Syria live under the constant fear of sniper fire. Children play on the
streets behind makeshift barricades to protect them from snipers loyal to Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad. The ancient city of Aleppo has become a battleground, with government
snipers occupying the historic Citadel. Many residents are trapped in their homes, caught in the
cross-fire. The Free Syrian Army have put up signs warning people to walk on a certain side of the street to avoid snipers' line of fire.'

 Not two sides as bad as each other, the Free Syrian Army doesn't murder civilians as Assad's
forces do. And regardless of the way the doomsayers put it, there still is a Free Syrian Army.

Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat turns spotlight on UK’s failure

 'In a brazen act of defiance in 2011, his award-winning caricatures depicted President Assad as a broken dictator, sitting on a broken armchair over a broken country. The regime’s response was rapid and brutal; he is now living in exile in Kuwait after masked gunmen, who he describes as “Assad’s thugs”, attempted to silence his sharp satire by pulling him out of his car, shattering his hands and leaving his fingers broken.'

Militant group stands strong as its numerous enemies fail to find a common plan

 Some of Patrick Cockburn's nonsense has been amended, he's not pretending Turkey is encouraging ISIS and al-Nusra since he interviewed the Turkish prime minister. The reason ISIS have been able to get through to the Qalamoun from Eastern Syria is that Assad's forces let them through, something that never enters Cockburn's worldview where they are deadly enemies.

 'Isis has been advancing towards the city of Homs as well as gaining strength south of Damascus and at al-Qalamoun, close to eastern Lebanon.'

 He takes an American general as the authority to say that the time to arm moderate rebels has passed. He conflates ISIS and the rebels against Assad, and asserts that they and al-Nusra dominate the opposition without ever saying what other forces they are. The Syrians wanting to overthrow Assad with a democracy and those fighting to enable that dream are invisible to him.

 'Retired US General James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee this week that in the war against Isis, the US has a “strategy-free” stance. He said that in Syria, America’s political objectives were uncertain and the time for supporting “moderate” Syrian rebels had passed. The Syrian armed opposition is increasingly under the control of Isis and its rival, the al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.'

 Cockburn doesn't repeat his call for an alliance with Assad, it is increasingly implausible as Assad has done so little to fight ISIS since Cockburn said they couldn't be stopped without a deal with Assad. He restricts himself here to saying that only the jihadists would benefit if the bombing and torture stopped. It is meaningless to say the Americans want rid of Assad if they plan to do nothing about it. It is not the Syrian Army that maintains the Assadist state and its terror now, but foreign soldiers and the shabiha gangs, noone should mourn the death of such a state.

 'The aim of the US and its allies is to defeat Isis, but also to get rid of Assad, though his fall would probably lead to the break-up of the Syrian army and benefit Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra.'

Information that the Syrians may not know

 'Four months before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, intelligence officials summoned a number of opposition figures to meetings where they were addressed by Tawfiq Younes, the Head of Internal Security in Damascus. He threatened them by telling them that he had strict orders from the president to shoot any Syrian who goes onto the streets to protest. The regime, he said, was ready to face any revolution, even if it had to destroy the country and kill hundreds of thousands of people in the process. Others have said that this means killing half of all Syrians if necessary.

 Advocates of a political solution at this point do so because the plan to crush the revolution has failed miserably, and the regime is facing defeat. Any negotiations from hereon are intended to save Al-Assad. Do not forget, though, that Bashar Al-Assad and his allies wanted to crush the revolution from the first day and end it through a military option, but failed; so why do some people want to save them from failure?'

Hezbollah is Flogging a Dead Horse

 'No amount of false, face-saving, cynical “resistance” to Israel by means of occasional, patchy attacks on groups of IDF men will atone for the fact that Hezbollah is now flogging a dead horse. Nobody sees it as a “resistance” organisation anymore. In fact, they see it for what it is, and always has been: a tool of Iran that is guilty of taking part in a genocidal war against the Syrian people. Four dead IDF soldiers will never, and can never, justify the precious lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrians. The morally-selective “resistance” supporters who pander to their line would do well to remember that.'

CIA’s Effort To Arm Syrian Rebels Plagued By Red Tape

 It is a delusion that Western intervention is what's killing Syrians. From the Wall Street Journal.

 ' “We walk around Syria with a huge American flag planted on our backs, but we don’t have enough AK-47s in our hands to protect ourselves,” a leader of the Hazzm Movement, among the most trusted of the trusted commanders, told U.S. lawmakers in a meeting after Nusra’s advances.'

Will photos turn US opinion?

 'The regime caused all of this but now they seem to be the angels fighting the bad guys. Who cares anymore about 200,000 people who got killed or hundreds of thousands who are in prison or ten millions of people [made] refugees who lost their houses?

 It seems no one really cares.'

Obama Cuts Off Syrian Rebels’ Cash

 'In Syria, few rebel fighters want to join a force focused only on ISIS. They argue that Assad is responsible for considerably more deaths among them and their extended families than ISIS, which is able to draw defectors from their ranks because it pays much higher salaries to its fighters and because it is able to exploit distrust of American intentions toward the Syrian revolution.

 U.S. officials now acknowledge difficulties recruiting from insurgent ranks, conceding it is a serious challenge finding enough recruits willing to put off fighting the Assad regime.

 Aleppo-based rebels say they have no choice but to work with al Nusra and the Islamic-Front-aligned factions that are among the strongest armed groups in the war-torn city. Without them, Assad’s forces would overwhelm the rebels.

 “What do the Americans expect us to do?” asks a commander in the operations room. “Al Nusra is popular here. It is a perilous time for us—Assad is pushing hard.” '

Claims of arms transfers to Syria by Turkey are exaggerated

 “Do you know the number of people who have crossed from Iran to Syria to fight? Some 40,000. I’m not just talking about volunteers, I’m talking about uniformed soldiers of the regime - the revolutionary guards. That’s why I am angry about this. No one talks about them, but everyone keeps talking about Turkey.”

Bitter Lake: Adam Curtis

 I'd agree that the Western ruling classes create stories, but they aren't the only ones, and especially it is the other imperialist narrative of Russia and Iran that has become the default position of the Western media when it comes to Syria. When Curtis says [2h14m], "Western politicians are having to accept that the simple division between good and evil doesn't exist. By bombing ISIS they are allowing the evil President Assad to remain in power," they are actually following the same policy as in Afghanistan of bombing jihadis and ignoring oppression, but here he approves of it.

 Linking all the jihadi groups to the Saudi ruling family seems to assume that similarities in ideology are all, and differences in political context mean nothing, so that they've been at each others throats since Osama Bin Laden declared war on the Saudis is ignored, in favour of the idea that they are really on the same side. It reminds me of Daily Mail stories which blame the 7/7 bombings on crazy Saudi educational materials imported into Britain. I think it might be a bit racist, but don't know enough about the subject to say for sure.

Insurgents Celebrate Victories Across Country

 There's a shifting reality in Syria.

The Islamic State Has Lost Kobane

 On 4th January, Patrick Cockburn* wrote, "Above all, Isis is strengthened in Syria by the fact that the West, Turkey and the Sunni Arab states are seeking the fall of Assad, Isis's main opponent, as well as the overthrow of Isis itself." It doesn't seem to have done them any good. 

 The surprising thing isn't that his pro-Assad prognosis is wrong again, but would be if any of Cockburn's fans on the left noticed.

*[http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/war-with-isis-the-west-is-wrong-again-in-its-fight-against-terror-9955853.html]

Syrian Rebels Want To Fight Assad

 'In his meetings with Americans, he says he explains that stopping terrorism requires stopping it at the source. He says Assad allowed ISIS to grow by releasing extremists from prisons and not conducting military operations against the group.

 Like the others, Zaabi wishes the coalition would try to defeat Assad and ISIS. The U.S. says it's seeking to pressure Assad to step down, rather than routing him militarily.

 But Zaabi says if Assad doesn't fall, a whole, brutalized generation will grow up to be extremists.'

Journalist Goto aims to tell world of Syrians’ suffering

 'In a report he filed for NHK in 2012, Goto reported how the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad tortured its people. His dispatch showed how the torture hardened anger against the Syrian government and recruited people to the side of the rebels. The report also included mostly mosaicked footage of citizens tortured by government forces after taking part in a peaceful demonstrations.'

 Also see, 'Two or three years ago he was held captive by al-Qaida-linked forces, but he was released after explaining his intentions to the captors. He said he had the advantage of being a journalist from Japan, which, unlike the U.S. or the U.K., has never participated in air strikes;' that would be al-Nusra I guess, who aren't very nice people, but aren't the same as ISIS, wanting to get rid of Assad rather than just act as barbarians in his wake.

The intimacy of tyranny

 There is a refugee crisis because of Assad's use of terror to cling on to power, he's still there because foreign powers protect him, and we don't hear this explicitly because so many of the refugees rely on not being identified by this terrorist state.

 'As empirical evidence of this, the Syrian refugees I interviewed across Lebanon from 2011 to late 2013, predominantly coming from the areas of the political opposition, suggest that the Syrian government’s legitimacy has been maintained through the diplomatic moves of the foreign powers, as well as the need of Syrians themselves to preserve their own life chances, professional achievements, personal satisfactions - their desire to remain “legal citizens” despite their aversion to the government. Everyday life, sometimes sees no other alternative.'

Our Man in Damascus

 'Assad and Iran also aren’t doing all that much to defeat Islamic State, which continues to hold major chunks of Syria. Instead they have focused on defeating the non-jihadist rebels that Mr. Obama has said the U.S. supports. This makes strategic sense for Assad, who wants to become the only alternative to ISIS so the West will have nowhere else to turn.

 How this helps America’s long-term interests is hard to see. The U.S. would have degraded one radical jihadist threat, ISIS, in return for empowering another one, Shiite radicals backed by the bomb. Congress should ask the Administration to clarify if Assad really is Mr. Obama’s man in Damascus.'

Syria rebels overtake strategic base in south

 'The south is the last major stronghold of the mainstream, anti-Assad opposition, who have been weakened elsewhere by the expansion of the ultra-hardline Islamic State group in the east and north, and gains by the Nusra Front in the northwest.

 However, Nusra is fighting in the south alongside the Western-backed groups, who have proved more united there than in other parts of Syria.'

 Here we see that Nusra and ISIS are not the same thing (though there was a worrying report that Nusra has ordered Ansar al-Islam (FSA) in the Eastern Ghouta to disarm), and that there are moderate Syrians wherever they receive some support.

Shifting Realities in Syria

 Repeating common untruths, the New York Times comes out for working with Assad. No it would not take direct US intervention to unseat Assad, but allowing the Free Syrian Army the anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons necessary to stop his depredations. The US and Assad ostensibly share a common enemy in ISIS, but in reality it is in Assad's interests for ISIS to dominate the areas liberated from his rule, as the only legitimacy he has left is that he is (debateably) better than they are. It's unclear how plausible is any Russian-backed deal that keeps Assad murdering and torturing, but we can state with certainty that the idea of such as John McCain that moderate Syrians can overthrow Assad is a fantasy. Because we don't know a lot about Syrians, but what we can be certain of is that they aren't moderates.

 'A recent study by the RAND Corporation, which does research for the government, says the collapse of the Assad regime, while unlikely now, would be the “worst possible outcome” for American interests — depriving Syria of its remaining state institutions and creating more space for the Islamic State and other extremists to spread mayhem.'

The Policy Cul-De-Sac

 'No one, not even regime apologists, can argue convincingly that this civilian-centric policy of mass murder and mass terror provides stability in an otherwise chaotic country.'

 There are idiots who say that it is the opposition, composed of Saudi proxies, and "Western colonialism", that are destabilising Syria. I don't find them convincing, but they manage to convince themselves.

West neglects suffering of Syrian people

 'Seida also pointed out that the Syrian revolution, according to the majority of Western citizens, has now been diverted by the extremists and radical groups. “Therefore, Assad remaining in power seems the lesser evil, according to the West. This explains why Hezbollah fighters and Iranian Revolutionary Guards supporting Assad troops are seen as better than Islamists who fight on the other side. The majority of Western citizens, who constitute the prevalent public opinion there, do not have time and willingness to make the effort and thoroughly seek the actual reality of the complexity of the Syrian situation. Western governments usually take advantage of public opinion, especially if it is in favor of their interests and consistent with their agendas.” '

 From 2nd January. I'd say that the simplicity of the situation is obscured by the mainstream media narrative, and that those Western leftists who imagine they are opposing Obama and Cameron's warmongering in Syria are simply following their agenda in avoiding providing the necessary help to Syrians fighting for their freedom because of the establishment fear of Islamists.

Syrian cartoonists lampoon Assad and Islamic State

 "The destruction of Syria was beyond our imaginations," says Wardeh. "Assad was addicted to turning our cities to dust. That was his cocaine."

The secret world of Isis training camps

 I wish the lies about ISIS and the FSA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, all being on the same side to overthrow Assad, would stop, but they won't.

 “Why do we fight the Free Syrian Army? We spread our message by proselytisation and sword. Ibn Taymiyyah said ‘the foundation of this religion is a book that guides and a sword that brings victory’. We guide and the sword brings victory. If someone opposes the message of the prophet, he faces nothing but the sword. As the prophet spread the message across the Earth, we are doing the same. When al-dawla [ISIS] first fought the Free Syrian Army, it was a problem for many. They did not believe the accusations. But later, one thing after another began to unfold and people started to accept them.”

Betrayal, Obama style

 'Obama was asked whether his decision not to intervene in Syria has attracted foreign fighters, he answered that this ‘mischaracterizes our position. We haven’t been standing on the sidelines. It’s true we did not invade Syria…’ as if an invasion was ever a serious option. These fake protestations don’t hide the fact that the Obama administration sees Iran now as a valuable if unofficial ally in the war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

 The cause of helping the Syrian people free themselves from the tyranny of the Assad regime is no longer urgent or a priority. President Obama would have been in a much better position, morally, had he not betrayed his own commitments and promises to the Syrian people. Obama will try to cover his betrayal by claiming that he is still helping the Syrian people. He may be immune to any moral anguish, because of his betrayal and because of his actions or inactions in Syria. But he cannot escape Syria’s sorrows being part of his legacy.'

Brilliant new book documents rise of Islamic State

 So the evidence Asa Winstanley and Patrick Cockburn are most convinced by regarding the Free Syrian Army comes from a prisoner in ISIS' custody. Any more comment on how far from the reality their slanders against the Syrian revolutionaries are should be superfluous.

 'In the custody of ISIS (after having defected to them) Saddam al-Jamal tells his interviewers (or perhaps interrogators) in the video that his FSA brigade was at first funded and directed by Qatar, but later was switched to the Saudis. Military council meetings were "invariably attended by representatives of the Saudi, UAE, Jordanian, and Qatari intelligence services, as well as intelligence officers from the US, Britain and France".'

 The usual lies are here, that that the Gulf régimes and Turkey were supporting ISIS, rather than the groups opposed to them, and in Turkey's case trying to avoid direct involvement. I also wonder what "indirect" support is supposed to mean. And Turkey being driven by sectarian hatred in their opposition to Assad is nonsense on stilts. He mentions the popular revolution just to claim it has just been swallowed up in other conflicts. A nonsense to those facing barrel bomb attacks* from Assad, who know exactly what sort of conflict is really going on in Syria. Or those starving to death in Yarmouk or being tortured to death in the prisons. Winstanley notes Cockburn's over-reliance on anonymous sources, that's because he's half relaying the lies of the Assad régime and the Iranians, and half relaying the lies of Western spooks and diplomats who see independent Islamically-minded people as a greater threat than any dictator.

 Not one mention of chemical weapons.

*[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/1/24/syrian-forces-kill-dozens-in-barrel-bomb-attack]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150122152852/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jan-22/284945-syria-regime-barrel-bombs-kill-13-in-homs-activists.ashx]

Are Uighurs fleeing China to join the Islamic State?

 No, they actually seem to be going to fight the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, but it's sexier when Muslims go to Syria to write that they are going to fight for ISIS.

 'In a telephone interview from his home in New Zealand, Chen told McClatchy he has made three visits to Syria since 2011 to fight with and help the Free Syrian Army, a group that has received limited U.S. support in its battle to oust the Syrian president.

 “I went there because I believe in freedom,” said Chen, known for his “Goddess of Democracy” statue, a tribute to victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. “I believe we should help people under dictatorship, whether they are in China or Syria.”

 During his time in Syria, Chen said he did not encounter any Uighur fighters, but he understands there are several there. He scoffed at Chinese claims that Uighur militants abroad are exporting terrorism back to China.'

We were defending British values

 These men are heroes. It's easy to cheerlead the Kurds fighting in Kobane, but the Islamophobia which has accompanied the Syrian revolution means those fighting against Assad are all tarred as Islamic extremists.

 'Now rewind to 2013. Back then all anyone could talk about were the thousands of civilians being slaughtered by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. As Syrians demanded their right to freedom and democracy, the government there was using chemical weapons to kill its people.

 Meanwhile the government here was considering military action to stop the massacres. Parliament decided not to intervene, but it's within this context that the two British men I've spoken to took it upon themselves to do, they say, what the government couldn't, to defend the people of Syria. Now they're back in the UK and living in fear of arrest.'

 Two errors here. Firstly, most of the left was not talking about the civilians killed by Assad, but by the danger the West might do something to stop it, along with sometimes denying that Assad had launched the chemical attacks at all, and parliament never considered action to stop the massacres, Cameron failed to say what action was being proposed which made it easy for the government to lose the vote.

Why rebels have failed in Syria

 'The Syrian people took America's shelling of the al-Nusra and ISIS bases in Idlib as an indicator that it was at war against Islam, one former fighter told me. Citizens thought "if the Americans are serious in helping the Syrian people, they should have shelled the government bases, not the rebels and civilians." Many civilians were reported killed and injured after the American air raids, prompting both anger toward the Americans and towards the groups that are funded by the Americans (like the FSA), as they are increasingly considered "part of the problem." '

 Civilians in Syria aren't trapped between competing proxy forces, but between a government trying to kill them and rebel forces given barely any support, which is the cause of the corruption and failure to defend communities made in this author's first three points. The problem isn't that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been diverting the opposition to their own purposes (how can fighting against Assad be a diversion?), but that the Americans have not allowed them to support the Free Syrian Army enough. But for those who see Gulf funding and names of brigades like Lions of Islam and assume it's all a Wahhabi plot, the truth is not plain to see. Also see, "Most Prominent Massacres Perpetrated by Shiite Militias in Syria"*.
*[http://sn4hr.org/blog/2015/01/23/2853/]

Arab dictators: between tactical brilliance and strategic stupidity

 'The regime in Syria opted for a drastic solution, turning the struggle into a total struggle for survival, but in the end destroying its own base for capital accumulation in the process. If Bashar cannot rule Syria then he will destroy it, and the ruling elites, endangering their own interests, have followed him blindly into the abyss.'

‘No to martyrdom by hunger in Yarmouk camp'

 Good piece by Ben Norton. Nothing but loony conspiracy theorists in the comments.

 'Since December 2012, civilians in Yarmouk, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria—what some refer to as the “capital of the Palestinian diaspora”—have been under siege and constant attack by the Syrian regime. Assad has bombed and shelled them, destroying much of the neighborhood’s infrastructure and even UNRWA shelters. Amnesty International has characterized the Syrian government’s siege on Yarmouk as “brutal” and has accused the Assad regime of carrying out “war crimes and crimes against humanity” against Palestinian and Syrian civilians in the neighborhood.'

Flood of jihadi volunteers to Syria 'unstoppable'

 Once again Patrick Cockburn gets the Independent front page to parade his lies about Syria. Moderate opposition forces "do not exist", try telling that to those fighting on the Southern Front, in the eastern Ghouta, in Aleppo, in Kobane and so forth. And the extent to which he is a tired old phrasemonger is evident when he says that "the armed opposition is increasingly dominated by Isis and by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra," if there were no moderate opposition forces they would completely dominate. And ISIS are not part of the opposition to Assad of course, but completely opposed to it. Assad's genocide is reduced to, "In Syria, Isis is benefiting from the disarray and internecine hatreds of its opponents."

 He lets the Turkish prime minister make some points, particularly correcting the lie that Turkey supports ISIS, part of the general campaign to muddy the waters and prevent any focus on removing Assad. But the headline and Cockburn's focus are on the jihadi tide being unstoppable, and thus the Turkish denials barely relevant. Cockburn skates over the fact that the Americans have shifted ever-further away from getting rid of Assad, in clear distinction to Turkish policy. Cockburn claims on the one hand that it is the Shia militias that have had greatest success against ISIS in Iraq, but on the other hand that only the non-sectarian Iraqi army could convince Sunnis of their good will. The gyrations involved in obscuring the contradiction between this, and promoting alliance with the sectarian murderers in Syria are clear.

America’s Syria plan is bound to fail

 'By accepting that Assad remain in place, the Obama administration is digging deeper the hole of its abysmal Syria policy. The problem is that by the time the true extent of American failure becomes apparent, Obama will have left office.

 With the United States not wanting now to be rid of Assad – a widely-shared view in Syria – its Syrian allies can only suffer as a consequence. This will push the “moderates” into a dilemma of either striving to appeal to their own population or to the gray suits in Washington. They will choose the former. That could undermine the cohesiveness of the rebels and cause them to slowly break away from the American grip.

 What would the U.S. do then? Cut off assistance, after the millions of dollars spent to bolster the rebels? Abandon potentially valuable allies, and in that way lend further momentum to ISIS and Nusra Front?

 The American scheme is so disconnected from the reality in Syria, from the suffering of millions of Syrians left to face a miserable fate for almost four years, that it is bound to fail. The arrogance of the Obama administration in this regard is breathtaking. Rarely has the United States been so indifferent to the destiny of a people subjected to the worst abominations.'

Syrians find safety, hospitality in São Paulo

 This is not a régime that can ever tolerate opposition again. The alternatives are that it is overthrown, or the mass murder gets worse.

 “I worked in Daraa, which is where the uprising started, I feared that if I was conscripted, I would be killed by the government forces, as they believe that anyone who has any connection to Daraa — who has ever been there — must be an enemy of the state.”

McCain Vents Against Obama’s Foreign Policy Strategy

 Assad maintains his support through terror, and by making minority communities complicit in his sectarian genocide so they will be fearful of what happens when he falls. Working with him is the terrible choice, leading some to support ISIS out of the despair of any alternative, when the only alternatives are flight and death. I'm told Brzezinski also says that Assad is no worse than other leaders in the region, I must have missed their chemical attacks and barrel bombs. Calling for an accommodation with Iran and Russia rather than supporting the Syrian revolution isn't an alternative to American foreign policy, it is the policy they've followed that has abandoned Syria to disaster.

 ' “Whether we like it or not,” Assad maintains significant support, Brzezinski said. “He’s still there – we have to take that into account.”

 Scowcroft and Brzezinski also said they could foresee roles for China and Russia in countering the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, despite Russia’s support of the Assad regime.

 “I wouldn’t rule out at some point getting some support from the Russians” against ISIS, Scowcroft said. “Among terrible choices, it’s one we should examine.” '

 Full footage here. [https://www.c-span.org/program/senate-committee/national-security-threats/385635]

Mass Torture Photos Taken in 'Hospital 601'

 Tuesday is Holocaust Memorial Day. Never again.

 'Hospital 601 was the photographing scene of Bashar al-Assad’s war crimes where the leaked photos showed hundreds of lifeless bodies with signs of starvation, brutal beatings, strangulation and other forms of torture and killing.

 Some of the photographs will take back the reader to the torture memos of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003 when the U.S. soldiers used to take photos with tormented bodies. Here the Syrian soldiers are doing the same.'

The killer mediates for the mass murderer

 'Just as the Egyptian president interfered in Libya and helped to form a militia loyal to him which he trains and provides with supplies and weapons, he now wants to intervene militarily in Syria in the same manner; he already supplies the mass murderer's army with Egyptian weapons. The Syrian rebels who seized Egyptian weapons have displayed them on television.

 This is the dialogue that will be conducted by the killer under his sponsorship; it will be a dialogue of blood. Beware, for these militias will operate under the pretext of fighting terrorism, which is what Al-Assad's regime calls the rebels in Syria. He has been able to benefit from the terrorism fever and Islamophobia that has swept the world, utilising it to serve his purpose, especially after the air strikes launched by the international coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria and Iraq.'

Israel unaware Iranian general was in Hezbollah convoy

 The people who tell us that everything in the Middle East is about America, will be telling us this is a major threat of a spreading war in the Middle East, when it is nothing of the kind. Hezbollah are too busy killing Syrians, and the Israelis are generally happy to let them get on with it. Whenever Assad has been attacked by Israel, again in a very limited way, he has only retaliated against defenceless Syrians. End of.

 “They are almost certain to respond. We are anticipating that, but I think it’s a fair assumption that a major escalation is not in the interest of either side.”

Chomsky: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West's outrage

 There are that number killed in Assad's bombing raids every day*, including apparently 75 killed today in an attack** on a sheep market in the north-east of Syria, but Chomsky only has the inclination to mention the one by the US that got far more coverage. He really hasn't got a fucking clue.

 'Other unfortunates are also not lacking, such as the 50 civilians reportedly killed in a U.S.-led bombing raid in Syria in December, which was barely reported.'

*Except January 7th. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11333557/Fierce-storm-in-Syria-limits-fighting-for-one-day-with-no-one-killed.html]
**[https://twitter.com/markito0171/status/557521869415673856]

Open letter calls on Nasrallah to pull Hezbollah fighters out of Syria

 'Hezbollah Lebanon is fighting in Syria to prevent the fall of the Assad regime, a regime that has been committing grave human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and war crimes for almost four years. In fact, your fighters are complicit in many of these crimes. This has inevitably caused Hezbollah Lebanon to lose the moral high ground it once held, and the party’s leadership and military commanders today face the possibility of standing trial for their complicity in these crimes.

 Your direct intervention in Syria has sealed the fate of Bashar al-Assad as a puppet in the hands of Sepah Pasdaran (Iran’s Revolutionary Guards). The Syrian regime would collapse in no time if Iran ended its massive financial and military support. But the price that you are paying is too high: like Iran, Hezbollah is today bleeding in Syria.'

U.S. Signals Shift on How to End Syrian Civil War

 I've seen five leftists post their solidarity with the struggle of the Vietnamese forty years ago this morning. Funnily enough, they are almost all people who have dismissed the struggle of the Syrian people as a foreign plot, replacing the anti-communism of a previous generation with an ignorance about Muslims.

 'The view that the United States supports Mr. Assad is spreading even among the groups receiving direct American financing, groups deemed moderate enough to receive arms and work with a United States-run operations center in Turkey. A fighter with Harakat Hazm, one such group, said Wednesday that America was “looking for loopholes to reach a political solution and keep al-Assad.”

 Tarek Fares, a secular Syrian Army defector who long fought with the loose-knit nationalist groups known as the Free Syrian Army but who has lately quit fighting, joked bitterly about American policy one recent night in Antakya, Turkey. “This is how the Americans talk,” he said. “They say, ‘We have a red line, we will support you, we will arm you.’ They do nothing, and then after four years they tell you Assad is the best option.” '

Plan to expand bombing campaign in Syria stalls

 Once again, "Western-backed" is a misnomer, when the White House says Assad's departure is an important goal their actions belie the claim, and as we'll see in the last paragraph quoted, at most they want just Assad to go so that his régime can be protected from revolution. The proposal to bomb ISIS north-east of Aleppo is presumably taking a long time because they want to make sure that nobody attacks Assad's forces while they are about it.

 'Turkish President Recep Tay­yip Erdogan “continues to have a different geographic priority,” a senior administration official said, and is still primarily focused on Aleppo and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 “We want to go after ISIL,” the official said, referring to the Islamic State.

 Assad’s military surrounds, and regularly bombards from the air, Western-backed moderate opposition fighters and civilians in Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in the northwest corner of the country.

 Although the administration has called for a negotiated solution to the conflict between Assad and the moderate opposition, some U.S. partners question how that can be accomplished as long as Assad and his military remain relatively strong and the opposition is increasingly weak.'

Aleppo Back To Life

 "The locals say that the régime tactic of attacking from the air is because they are unable to fight people in the street."

Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Efforts

 About fifty minutes through there's a press conference reply from President Obama, with the key bit in the Guardian*.

 'Obama said the US had not been “standing on the sidelines” during the Syrian war. “It’s true that we did not invade Syria,” he said.'

 This is the same distortion the phony anti-imperialists perpetuate, that the alternative to doing nothing was to invade, when it was always about the failure to support the Free Syrian Army, starving them of weapons while Assad got them by the planeload from Moscow, plus planes from which to drop them. And President Obama talks here of "working with partners in the region," vagueing over that that means working with the iranians who are assisting in mass murder in Syria, rather than the FSA, who have been fighting Assad, Iran and ISIS.

*[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2015/jan/16/obama-cameron-joint-press-conference-meeting-live]

Is Hezbollah Going Broke?

 They've lost 1,000 fighters killing Syrian freedom fighters. They've lost none fighting against ISIS as far as I'm aware, because they and Assad have coordinated with ISIS, not fought them. The régime left open a corridor so that ISIS could establish itself in the western Qalamoun mountains, where Hezbollah has been taking one hell of a beating from actual rebel groups. The piece is also interesting on the growing divide between the poor Shia, and those who have grown rich from distributing Iranian largesse, important if the Shia community in Lebanon is going to reject involvement in the genocide in Syria.

 'Hezbollah’s budget woes come at perhaps the worst possible time for the organization. The group recently uncovered a Mossad spy high in its ranks, and its militant wing has reportedly lost nearly 1,000 fighters in the Syrian civil war. As Hezbollah takes on a growing role in the battle against ISIS and Syrian rebel groups, that conflict further threatens to strain its resources.'

Are Israel, Jabhat al-Nusra coordinating on attacks in Syria?

 No. This nonsense started a few months ago, and it's taken this long for John Rees and his Counterfire, the ex-leadership of the SWP who have been the closest on the Left in Britain to openly supporting Assad, to pick it up. The support for any Syrian rebels comes down to two unidentified boxes that could have contained medical supplies, the evidence that Israel is cooperating with Jabhat al-Nusra is zero. It's this sort of adoption of conspiracy theories via the internet that deny Syrians agency, and claim they are just proxies in a Saudi/US plot to Talibanise/seize Syria's oil, that will most discredit the Left when an accounting of what happens in Syria occurs, unfortunately all those who do support the oppressed when it is most important will get dragged down by the idiots.

“Our lack of weapons puts us in a position of weakness”

 'Questions to Lorca, Midou and Abu Layla [1], officers of the Popular Liberation Factions (FLP), a military structure created by the Current of the Revolutionary Left (CRL), a Syrian revolutionary Marxist organization.'

 I think their ultra-leftism doesn't help too. When they lump the Islamists fighting Assad together as reactionary forces, they are falling into the same sectarianism that had the German Communist Party of the 1930s see the "social-fascists" of the Social Democratic party as as bad as Hitler. That they can only get limited cooperation from even FSA battalions suggests their purity isolates itself. Which is a great pity, because if there is going to be anyone who defends the progressive principles of the revolution, it will be these people, and if they are busy blaming the Saudis as much as the Iranians for the mess Assad has created, they aren't going to have much traction with the millions whose lives have been devastated by the régime.

What’s Cooking in Moscow?

 'Today, in Syria, we are facing a humanitarian tragedy made worse by Washington’s endorsement of Moscow’s positions, giving its implicit blessing to the Moscow conference. It is also important to recall that what has brought about this catastrophic situation inside Syria and its neighboring countries is Washington’s continuous rejection of calls from the opposition and the genuine “Friends of Syria” for no-fly zones and safe havens.

 Washington’s inaction has led to the following:

 – By not acting against Assad despite issuing several warning, the Syrian president has been left free to use every weapon in his possession against his own people.

 – Washington’s passivity has stopped the uprising’s momentum, so mass desertions of politicians and military fizzled out when they discovered the long concealed truth that President Obama was unwilling to confront Iran and Russia, and would not force Assad to abdicate.

 – Through the same passivity, Washington has emboldened Iran to order Iranian, Lebanese, Iraqi and other (Shi’ite) fighters to back Assad militarily, with Russia taking care of arms supplies.

 – Washington has weakened and disheartened the moderates in the Syrian opposition camp, turning the Free Syrian Army (FSA) into the weakest fighting force on Syrian soil, while allowing—during 4 long years—thousands of extremists to come to Syria from all corners of the world. These extremists, in turn, have now undermined the uprising’s credibility and blemished its image.

 This means that what is being planned in Moscow is nothing more than a conspiracy, not a conference, against Syria and its popular uprising.'

Assad’s Crimes And The Syrian Nuclear State

 Mint Press News has printed some dreadful pro-Assad propaganda, so I'm surprised to see this piece.

 'International powers do not need to commit to a full scale ground invasion to turn the tides in Syria. A no fly zone, taking away the regime’s ability to drop barrel bombs, would benefit the people greatly. International sanctions to cripple the regime economically would be wonderful. Some support of the local rebel groups like the Free Syrian Army or the Kurds with income or weaponry could turn the tides of battle.

 There are many ways the world could help Syrians achieve a goal they have been fighting for since early 2011: a peaceful, true democratic state where individuals can live freely and pursue happiness. After all the Syrian people have been through, I think they deserve it.'

Trailer of "Our Terrible Country"

 "Is this the freedom you want?"

 "If I were free to choose, then no. I would have preferred a more chic and less costly freedom. However, it seems this is the price we're forced to pay."

 'The film, which is being shown on Saturday at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens and on Feb. 18 at Artists Space in TriBeCa confronts those divides with painful honesty and illuminates the personal calamities that ensued for those who staked their lives on revolt.'
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/arts/in-our-terrible-country-mohammad-ali-atassi-explores-the-syrian-revolt.html]

They told me they were going to melt me in acid

 ' "Those people, who are literally monsters, they are brainwashed to serve that guy [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad]."

 Shaheen wants to change that. She wants men like her torturers to be integrated back into the society. She wants Syria to go back to normal. And she feels every single Syrian can make a difference.

 "I never felt like, 'oh, I was tortured, so I have to run away,'" she says, "I feel a lot of people in Syria depend on me." '

US to Train Thousands of Syrian Rebels per Year

 Telesur, propaganda mouthpiece of ISIS.

 ' “In the east of Syria, there is no Free Syrian Army any longer. All Free Syrian Army (FSA) people (there) have joined the Islamic State,” a senior Islamic State group commander told the Washington Post in August 2014.'

 This isn't true. There was a substantial contingent of the Free Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor when ISIS over-ran it in June 2014. They appealed for weeks for some arms to be sent so they could resist ISIS*, when it didn't come they didn't join ISIS, but left to fight on other fronts, some of them to Kobane, and maybe some of them stayed. When Ha'aretz reports, "Islamic State has beheaded or shot 17 men in Syria in the past two days as it faces increasing attacks from unidentified gunmen in areas it controls,"** I think they might be identified as the Free Syrian Army. But Telesur prefers to go solely with the extremists version of events.

 And with only the negatives of what American officials have to say.

 'According to Defense One, the training program's biggest hurdle is establishing a vetting process for potential recruits.

“(I)dentifying rebel fighters who don’t have ties to Jabhat al-Nusra, the main al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is extremely difficult for a Pentagon with limited resources on the ground,” Defense One reported.'

I've looked at the Defense One story***, and that quote is immediately followed up by, 'Still, the Pentagon is confident its forces can identify, recruit and then train a moderate force. American military forces, particularly Special Forces, have decades of experience screening foreign military forces for training, Pentagon officials said. “We also know the Syrian opposition better now than we did two years ago through the programs we’ve had providing non-lethal assistance.” '

 Even so, Telesur is only following what those administering Obama's hands-off policy have been telling us for the last three years, that you can't trust Muslims because any of them might be a jihadi. Defense One doesn't ignore the alternate view, " frustration from critics arguing that the Obama Administration has not moved faster to assist the floundering moderate forces inside Syria."

 In other good news, Greta and Vanessa, the two revolutionaries kidnapped by al-Nusra, have been freed.****

*[https://m.naharnet.com/stories/en/134406-syria-rebels-urge-arab-support-against-isil-jihadists]
**[https://www.haaretz.com/2015-01-16/ty-article/middle-east-updates/0000017f-dc57-db5a-a57f-dc7fbc1b0000]
***[https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/01/us-send-400-trainers-and-hundreds-more-troops-syrian-train-and-equip-mission/103068/]
****[https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/syria-italian-hostage-aid-workers-greta-ramelli-vanessa-marzullo-freed-1483614]

Snowfall adds to refugee misery in Syrian city of Aleppo

 Finally a BBC report where you don't have to dig too far to understand that the aerial bombardment and targeting of Aleppo is by Assad's forces, and that's why millions have fled, not from some impersonal violence affecting Syria. Oddly there is no narration over the video footage.

 'Heavy snowfall in Aleppo, Syria's second city has added misery to the lives of those who have chosen to stay in the city despite devastation caused by aerial bombardment.

 Almost three million Syrians have left the country and many of those have fled from Aleppo, where fighting has been heavy and virtually continuous.

 Aleppo has been hit hard by the violence afflicting Syria, control of the city is divided between rebels and those loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have been targeting the city.'

Medieval occupiers force children to donate blood

 If we do not support revolutions, they will have to look for support for imperialist powers when at their weakest.

 ' “We know American soldiers will protect us,” one woman said defiantly. “Then it will be game over.”

 But in Raqqa, Mosul and the countless smaller cities and villages where longtime residents remain trapped, living under the bloody sword of ISIS, fear persists that the daily scenes of beheaded bodies and devastated buildings is scarring children and damning the future.

 “The hopes of entire generations have been destroyed,” RaqqAwi said. “But we will continue our revolution and fulfill our dream, or we will die trying. We dream for Syria a free country – long live Syria – prosperous and strong.” '