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Syria: The Fish Lower The Water Level
Yesterday I linked a video of the murdering of some guys by the Syrian insurgency. The men were leading folks from an important Sunni family in Aleppo. The insurgents gave a lot of reasons why they killed them but none of those will matter. The Berri clan/tribe and its related tribes/folks are said to have in total some 20,000 male members. They are now expected to take up arms against the insurgents.
This is not the only incident in which the insurgency made itself not welcome by the population. Mao said something like "The guerrilla is the fish and the people are the water." The insurgents are themselves reducing the water level in which they hope to swim. That will not turn out well for them.
[@all – sorry for the recent light, one themed posting. While I really would like to write on more issues, I currently lack the time doing such.]
@ThePaper&Zico,
No not the same person, and we are all permitted to share our views. Let me clarify;
I agree what is happening is disgusting, likewise with Libya; I have no affiliation, but as an ex-soldier, and have worked in conflict and post conflict zones for over 20 years I know how things work, and not an armchair warrior – it’s ‘always’ a matter of time. I feel this course of action is only causing a bigger risk for the world and increasing global threats – Now that is out of the way, and so I don’t want to wet your bag!
The facts are the partners had decided Assad will go, Assad does not have the capability or the support, he has political support, but only until deals can be made, the Russia have a large stake and need some agreements – It really is that simple, geopolitics is a trade-off. Hence nothing can be resolved at the UN.SC level, that is just a debate and who gets what.
The only saving grace Assad has had is geopolitical woe’s, recession and other focuses, but that is coming to a tipping point. The world will forget the ill’s and injustice of this event, in fact it will do so in a couple of weeks, much like in Libya, yet Libya has sent weapons to insurgents and caused the Mali issues, and many other related problems, the result is that Libya will never recover to what it once was, the second most progressive country on the African Continent, Ironically this was even stated by UNDP weeks prior to the uprising .
Syria – The turn is coming, it’s all about positioning, one can see the media (Mainstream) doing what we call the soft awakening, it starts to discuss the bad on both sides, and then shows the bad from both sides, this lay’s the path for external intervention, it’s all part of the cooking, the classic, two wrongs make a right!
The next media wave will be saturation, just strings of events until the mainstream viewer become numb, just as in Kosovo and Libya, in short, get it over with.
One thing you need to realize, the global powers are just too big, nothing a blog can do, nothing anyone can do, what is planned is planned, and it’s wrong, but that is the way the cookie crumbles.
R/
Posted by: ArtofWar | Aug 1 2012 20:42 utc | 11
Obama’s act, of signing off on aid to the Syrian rebels, answers the question of whether Washington intends to back down on regime change in Syria. Of course, Panetta’s warning to Assad (for the safety of the Syrian president and his family) ” to get the hell out now” was crude as well. There is no changing course for the Empire; and this political high wire act will continue without the safety of a net.
In other Empire News, US General Caldwell, who was in charge of the now infamous hospital in Kabul, where the condition of many of its emaciated, neglected patients, has been compared by a military investigator, to conditions in Auschwitz; is now the subject of a congressional investigation.
From today’s DemocracyNow!:
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what’s happened at the hospital, how you found out about it, and then about the cover-up.
MICHAEL HASTINGS: Sure. This was a hospital that was started in 2005 in Kabul and funded almost completely by the United States. And about a year ago, the Wall Street Journal did an original story about how a lot of these patients who were at—these Afghan patients at the hospital were dying, essentially, from starvation, from simple infections that should be treated very easily but instead they were—actually became mortal wounds. There were allegations that, to get treatment, you had to bribe the hospital officials. And so, there were a number of Americans who were advisers there who thought this was horrible, took a lot of these pictures, brought them to the command, this General Caldwell, and General Caldwell said, “I don’t want any of this bad news getting out of here. I don’t want an investigation. Let’s just, you know, try to sweep this under the rug.” Thankfully, the whistleblowers continued—kind of ignored that, essentially, and went ahead, and that’s how we know about this, because of this congressional investigation into it.
When Goodman pressed RollingStone reporter, Michael Hastings, to describe who General Caldwell is, this is Hastings’ description:
[…] General Caldwell is—was the head of the $11.2-billion-a-year Afghan training mission. At one time, he was the spokesperson for the U.S. in Iraq. In fact, I spent many a day next to General Caldwell in the Green Zone, while he would sit next to me and tell us how great things were going in Baghdad. And this was in 2006, 2007, when things were really, really going horribly.
Now, one of General Caldwell’s things is he’s obsessed with the idea of messaging. He’s obsessed with public affairs. One of the things he’s wanted to do is tear down the traditional wall between public affairs and information operations—which public affairs are for the Americans, information operations are for the enemy—and combine it into one sort of global strategic communication strategy. So, when he was presented with these allegations, these abuses, these photos, this testimony, his response was, “Well, how do we message this? You know, this is not the kind of news we want to get out of here.”
And now General Caldwell is the head of U.S. Army North, so he’s back in the United States. And he’s in charge of—in case there’s a catastrophe or martial law or whatever, he would be the guy who would be in charge from the Army side of things.
The monstrous conditions covered up for so long in the Kabul hospital, are being compared, horror to horror, with the terrible abuses that were carried out under US military watch in Iraq, inside the prison at Abu Ghraib.
Posted by: Copeland | Aug 2 2012 2:11 utc | 42
the MSM is getting worried:
Christians Flee from Radical Rebels in Syria
By Ulrike Putz in Qa, Lebanon
AP
Thousands of Syrians are fleeing into neighboring Lebanon — not entirely due to fear of the Assad regime. The country’s minority Christian population is suffering under attacks waged by rebel troops. In the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, Christian families are finding temporary refuge, but they are still terrified.
There had been many warnings that the Khouri* family wouldn’t talk. “They won’t say a word — they’re too scared,” predicted the mayor of Qa, a small market town in northeastern Lebanon where the Khouris are staying. “They won’t even open their door for journalists,” said another person, who had contacted the family on behalf of a non-governmental organization.
Somehow, though, the interview was arranged in the end. Reserved and halting, the women described what happened to their husbands, brothers and nephews back in their hometown of Qusayr in Syria. They were killed by Syrian rebel fighters, the women said — murdered because they were Christians, people who in the eyes of radical Islamist freedom fighters have no place in the new Syria.
In the past year and a half, since the beginning of the uprising against Syria’s authoritarian President Bashar Assad, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have fled their homes and sought safe haven abroad. Inside the country, the United Nations estimates that 1 million people have left their homes to escape violence and are now internally displaced. The majority are likely to have fled to escape the brutality of Assad’s troops. Indeed, as was the case at the start of the Syrian civil war, most of the violence is still being perpetrated by the army, the secret services and groups of thugs steered by the state.
PHOTO GALLERY
15 PhotosPhoto Gallery: War in Syria Moves to the Cities
With fighting ongoing, however, the rebels have also committed excesses. And some factions within the patchwork of disparate groups that together comprise the Free Syrian Army have radicalized at a very rapid clip in recent months. A few are even being influenced by foreign jihadists who have traveled to Syria to advise them. That, at least, is what witnesses on the ground are reporting in Qusayr, where fierce fighting has raged for months. Control of the town has passed back and forth between the two sides, at times falling into the hands of the regime and at others of the rebels. Currently, fighters with the Free Syrian Army have the upper hand, and they have also made the city of 40,000 residents a place where the country’s Christian minority no longer feels safe.
Campaigns against Christians
“There were always Christians in Qusayr — there were around 10,000 before the war,” says Leila, the matriarch of the Khouri clan. Currently, 11 members of the clan are sharing two rooms. They include the grandmother, grandfather, three daughters, one husband and five children. “Despite the fact that many of our husbands had jobs in the civil service, we still got along well with the rebels during the first months of the insurgency.” The rebels left the Christians alone. The Christians, meanwhile, were keen to preserve their neutrality in the escalating power struggle. But the situation began deteriorating last summer, Leila says, murmuring a bit more before going silent.
“We’re too frightened to talk,” her daughter Rim explained, before mustering the courage to continue. “Last summer Salafists came to Qusayr, foreigners. They stirred the local rebels against us,” she says. Soon, an outright campaign against the Christians in Qusayr took shape. “They sermonized on Fridays in the mosques that it was a sacred duty to drive us away,” she says. “We were constantly accused of working for the regime. And Christians had to pay bribes to the jihadists repeatedly in order to avoid getting killed.”
Grandmother Leila made the sign of the cross. “Anyone who believes in this cross suffers,” she says.
Foreign Jihadists in Combat in Qusayr
It is not possible to independently corroborate the Khouri’s version of events, but the basic information seems consistent with what is already known. On April 20, Abdel Ghani Jawhar involuntarily provided proof that foreign jihadists are engaged in combat in Qusayr. Jawhar, a Lebanese national and commander with the terrorist group Fatah al Islam, died that day in the Syrian city. An explosives expert, Jawhar had been in Qusayr to teach rebels how to build bombs and accidentally blew himself up while trying to assemble one. Until his death, Jawhar had been the most wanted man in Lebanon, where he is implicated in the deaths of 200 people. Lebanese authorities confirmed his death in Syria. The fact that the rebels had worked together with a man like Jawhar fomented fears after his death that the ranks of insurgents are increasingly becoming infiltrated by international terrorists.
…etc
* The names in this story have been changed in order to protect the identity of the interview subjects.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/christians-flee-from-radical-rebels-in-syria-a-846180.html
Posted by: brian | Aug 2 2012 7:19 utc | 51
Hey, stop biting my ankles, this blog is like a Chihuahua convention. I will stress what is happening ‘is wrong’ but the region and its actors are equally to blame. I am just giving my view.
@43 – No studio, and all meat balls – I feel you just don’t get the bigger picture. As for your tangible, “said a Lebanese official close to the group” – Not exactly the voice of authority, more like someone in panic and finger waving rhetoric.
If you feel Iran will be Syria’s saving grace, that is daft – Syria is the stepping stone dismantle Iran. As for the SC, concur; it is nothing more than an debating forum and member states never agreeing, it’s as good as it’s weakest link, and it has many UN mission have always been failures, and by design. Most if not all agreements are made behind closed doors, and outside the SC, the same will apply here. The UN will endorse actions as its core funding is via the big 5, and they are the ones that between themselves will come to an ‘Arrangement’, as it has done in the past, over and over.
Obama, as #56 stated – Obama is an epic failure as a US president and nothing more than a interest group poster boy & an closet War monger with his little black book. The only change from the last administration with Bush Jr. was the transition from extrajudicial detention (Guantanamo) to Obama and extrajudicial Killings (Drones). Not exactly the symbol of progress, in fact – just cowardly.
US elections are the furthest thing I have ever witnessed from democracy, the yearlong processes is purely about the money, and the buy-in.The show (Media) is an abortion of ethics, moral, just a soap opera, and boy’s pissing contests, rather embarrassing and at more expense than many countries have as a GDP, perverse! I feel the good Dr. Ron Paul would have brought back an air of respect, civil society, and decency (assumption), but the US limits 3rd parties, or those not bought, that is a plain fact.
@52 – I understand your logic. Russia and the West/Partners have deeply discussed the cake sharing, and ongoing. Russia is the largest investor, owns the most of Syria’s debt, even written off many billion’s of that dept. So trade, Naval base, and yes the Gas, Oil, Water- The latter, a new commodity that is gaining attention as using fear to make the money – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/u-s-intelligence-says-water-shortages-threaten-stability.html If they could find a way to tax air they would, and fear is the tool of choice. With 3-5 billion of debt on the table owed to Russia, it obvious it will be holding the political reigns and putting a stick in the gog’s. Like any situation, they will negotiate – Russia will want to hold on to its investment and position, and have some form of assurance/insurance,it was just burnt in Libya, it will be given options, slightly less, and Russia will accept, all part of the agenda. Russia will gain though other trade off’s, more than likely in other regions.
As for China, In this saga it’s engagement is political, not geopolitical – It’s concern is the Asian Pacific I and the moves of the US, the next US expansion of its borderless Empire, and one that already has over 200 military bases in 120 Countries. With Asia the foothold is not an option, it’s a must as Asia owns over 50% of US debt – the US does not win war’s, it does not need to win; just the economics – The unfortunate part is the citizen foot’s the bill without choice!
In terms of the Intel community be it US CIA, UK DIS/SIS, Israel Mossad/Shin Bet, Turkey MIT, Jordan GID etc, they more or less spy on each other as well as coordinate – all have common denominators, either reliant on US funding or assistance, a tie that binds, and will remain even if conflicting.
R/
Posted by: ArtofWar | Aug 2 2012 12:46 utc | 59
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