Aren’t cluster bombs the west’s issue? Didn’t we carpet bomb Iraq with them so that for years to come children and other civilians could continue to feel our wrath? What a bunch of asshole we have sitting in the chairs of power. They all need to be put into chairs that have power… lots of electrical power that is.

Posted by: DaveS | Mar 16 2013 14:33 utc | 4

And when the latest war with Lebanon was over didn’t the US delay the peace treaty in order to deliver more cluster bombs for Israel to drop?

Posted by: lambent1 | Mar 16 2013 15:23 utc | 6

The US claim that it is deploying drones in Syria to fight terrorism is a cover for their use in providing intelligence to the terrorists about SAA troop movements and eventually in targeting SAA military commanders. Any time the US makes a public assertion about it’s military strategy you know it is a lie, because the truth is a strategic asset which must be kept secret.
Anyone who has followed international affairs closely knows that “Human Rights Watch” is a US whore.

Posted by: Gareth | Mar 16 2013 15:23 utc | 8

Interesting that anyone, anywhere near the SAA fire instantly becomes “civilians” in western Zionist corporate media. Even the most monstrously grotesque of the bearded trolls NATO have at it´s disposal

Posted by: Buk | Mar 16 2013 17:53 utc | 10

Hey B—
Here’s an article that was published on Counterpunch a few days ago which took HRW’s report on Venezuela to task:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/14/the-bias-of-human-rights-watch/

Posted by: RC | Mar 16 2013 18:51 utc | 12

Cluster bombs, soldiers using Viagra to rape civilians, genocidal massacres, eating babies, turning coke to pepsi Saddam and Gaddafi were both accused of these things. Demonizing is such a tired tactic, I can’t see why so many people fall for it. This is all propaganda. Just clear and simple propaganda to keep the war drum beating.

Posted by: Fernando | Mar 16 2013 22:05 utc | 14

Rusty Pipes – 14
“(Lamb puts it at 15% pro-insurgent, 30% pro-regime and the rest just wanting the fighting to stop)”
Doubtful Lamb has done any solid research into those numbers and is probably guessing based upon too much reading of the rubbish the zionist media puts out. Poll figures I’ve been seeing for months now pretty much square with this:
Looking for Way Out of Syrian Crisis
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/03/14/looking-for-way-out-of-syrian-crisis.html
“There are two belligerents in the confrontation. The Bashar Assad’s leadership supported by the major part of population (60% – 75% according to different sources), its law enforcement agencies, armed forces on the one side and armed formations waging terror campaign, predominantly radical Islamists, on the other. Many of them come from Muslim Arab states and European Muslim communities. Al Qaeda militants make up part of the opposition.”

Posted by: вот так | Mar 16 2013 23:31 utc | 16

@bot tak #16
I apologize. I was conflating two articles I have recently read that both use similar statistics regarding firm supporters of the Assad administration (around 30%) and firm supporters of the insurgents (around 15%). The Al Akhbar article describes the attitude of the rest as Syria’s ‘Silent Majority’: “To Hell With Both of Them.” Franklin Lamb, one of the few Western journalists to have been reporting from Damascus for the past several months, has a more optimistic take on the war-weary attitude of the majority of Syrians in The Oft-Predicted Fickle Syrian ‘Tipping Point’ Has Tipped:

Based on personal observations and interviews with a fair number of informed people who actually live in Syria, as opposed to the Zionist “think” tank-arm chair “expert” variety, this observer concedes that prognosticators are finally right.
In point of fact, I have concluded over the past few months that the long elusive “tipping point” in Syria has indeed been reached and the momentum has shifted decisively in this embattled.
But not the tipping point that the rebel promoters were hoping for, including the NATO countries.
But rather the momentum here has tipped in favor of the current regime due to its capacity to maintain a slowly rising level of popular support, and good relations with key foreign supporters during the current run up to next year’s Presidential election. Then, it will be up to the Syrian voters to decide who stays, goes, and/or joins in their next government.
I base my tentative conclusions, on among others, the following factors.
The Syrian population here is so tired, so exhausted and beaten down– the killing has gone on for so long, and the Syrian people, like Iranians and others I have observed, appear to exhibit a ( distinctly noticeable by this foreigner), profound and almost moral and religious bond with their countrymen and they personally feel acutely their country’s suffering. Such that people on the streets are very shocked and incredulous at what is going on and many in fact feel less strongly about either side in the conflict and just want the slaughter to end and for life to return to ‘normal’ even without deep revolutionary-across the board-changes for now.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Mar 17 2013 0:08 utc | 18

While something formed from Helsinki Watch, created by the Ford Foundation as an anti-soviet propaganda mechanism was always going to be pretty dubious, they seemed to go noticably downhill once Suzanne Nossel went through their ranks as ‘Chief Operating Officer’.
Initially the idea with HRW seemed to be to create a US based/focused competitor to the International Committee of the Red Cross that would eventually supplant them in international affairs, & there seemed to be quite a bit of genuine human rights stuff actually done by them in places that people have never heard of.
After Nossel went through they went downhill steadily, up to the point where they now seem to be just another stop in the great US lobbying/ngo/thinktank industry for connected insiders. Probably still some genuine believers in the rank and file, but the whole management structure looks to be completely corrupt.
PS. Nossel, champion of ‘Liberal Internationalism’ & founder of the ‘Smart Power’ doctrine so favoured by the Obama/Clinton neo-liberals, got kicked off of her perch as Executive Director of Amnesty not too long ago!
Probably a little too late for whatever was left of Amnesty’s reputation, but still good to hear.
Moved straight into the Executive Directorship of something called the PEN American Center, however…
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEN_American_Center )

Posted by: KenM | Mar 17 2013 0:18 utc | 20

Over the past couple of years I’ve paid a lot of attention to the question of what percentage of Syrians support the Assad government and I’m very confident that the estimate given by вот так #15 is correct. Both Franklin Lamb and the editors of Al Akhbar are bigoted against the Assad government and their low estimate of 30% does not reflect a quality information basis about Syria and instead it reflects their bigotry.

Posted by: Parviziyi | Mar 17 2013 0:35 utc | 22

@ Rusty Pipes: If your post has a lot of text, it will get put into suspension in the spam filter. The solution is to split the post into two separate smaller posts, or three if necessary. Another rule of the spam filter is that if the post has a lot of links it will get put into suspension in the spam box. You will be told “your comment has been posted” but in fact it won’t be. The solution once again is to break it up into several posts and post them quickly one right after the other.

Posted by: Parviziyi | Mar 17 2013 0:40 utc | 24

@DR#21:
I just was able to post a long comment in another thread and the security code came up. It hasn’t been coming up in this thread.
@bot tak#23 I’ll try breaking my comment into bits. Part I:
@bot tak #16
I apologize. I was conflating two articles I have recently read that both use similar statistics regarding firm supporters of the Assad administration (around 30%) and firm supporters of the insurgents (around 15%). The Al Akhbar article describes the attitude of the rest as Syria’s ‘Silent Majority’: “To Hell With Both of Them.” Franklin Lamb, one of the few Western journalists to have been reporting from Damascus for the past several months, has a more optimistic take on the war-weary attitude of the majority of Syrians in The Oft-Predicted Fickle Syrian ‘Tipping Point’ Has Tipped.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Mar 17 2013 0:47 utc | 26

@bot tak #16, Part II (from the Lamb article at Counterpunch):

Based on personal observations and interviews with a fair number of informed people who actually live in Syria, as opposed to the Zionist “think” tank-arm chair “expert” variety, this observer concedes that prognosticators are finally right. In point of fact, I have concluded over the past few months that the long elusive “tipping point” in Syria has indeed been reached and the momentum has shifted decisively in this embattled. But not the tipping point that the rebel promoters were hoping for, including the NATO countries.
But rather the momentum here has tipped in favor of the current regime due to its capacity to maintain a slowly rising level of popular support, and good relations with key foreign supporters during the current run up to next year’s Presidential election. Then, it will be up to the Syrian voters to decide who stays, goes, and/or joins in their next government.
I base my tentative conclusions, on among others, the following factors.
The Syrian population here is so tired, so exhausted and beaten down– the killing has gone on for so long, and the Syrian people, like Iranians and others I have observed, appear to exhibit a ( distinctly noticeable by this foreigner), profound and almost moral and religious bond with their countrymen and they personally feel acutely their country’s suffering. Such that people on the streets are very shocked and incredulous at what is going on and many in fact feel less strongly about either side in the conflict and just want the slaughter to end and for life to return to ‘normal’ even without deep revolutionary-across the board-changes for now.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Mar 17 2013 0:52 utc | 28

#15 “The Bashar Assad’s leadership supported by the major part of population (60% – 75% according to different sources)”
A month or so ago in West media was interview with a terrorist from Alepo, who was pissed 70% of population are pro-Assad, and blamed Syrians in general for “not supporting the revolution.” So even terrorists agree with you on this one 😉

Posted by: Harry | Mar 17 2013 7:13 utc | 30

Franklin Lamb, who’s now located in Damascus, says as quoted at #25 above: “over the past few months… momentum here has tipped in favor of the current regime due to its capacity to maintain a slowly rising level of popular support.” That is a falsehood. I know of no evidence to support it anywhere. There has been no change in the level of the government’s support. Undoubtedly one of the factors causing Franklin Lamb to make that error is that Franklin Lamb, until he recently relocated to Damascus, used to think that the regime was ugly and the regime didn’t have a lot of popular support, and a change of regime would be nice, and he used to think (probably still does), wrongly, that the regime was guilty of brutalizing and oppressing the population such that the regime couldn’t and didn’t have good legitimacy among the people. Whereas most of the people of Syria believe, correctly, that the stories of about brutalizing, and so on, are false propaganda. The great majority of the people of Syria believe Syrian State TV and Addounia TV. At #25 Franklin Lamb claims “[many people on the Damascus streets] feel less strongly about either side in the conflict and just want… life to return to ‘normal’ even without deep revolutionary-across the board-changes for now.” That statement is effectively a contradiction in terms because a return to ‘normal life’ is effectively a complete defeat for the rebels and a complete victory for the government. That sentence of his also has a major factual error when it says there is a politically uncommitted or apolitical silent majority. Different individuals who support the government have different degrees of comprehensiveness and intensity in their support. But there is no such thing as an uncommitted majority. The majority are committed and support this government, and that fundamental has been true every day for the last two years and for the last two decades, and the size of that majority is not a bare majority either but it is something like 70%.

Posted by: Parviziyi | Mar 17 2013 12:34 utc | 32

Israel calls and Engel jumps to attention.
Senior US Democrat to introduce bill on arming Syrian rebels
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_18/Senior-US-Democrat-to-introduce-bill-on-arming-Syrian-rebels/
“Eliot Engel, a Democrat MP on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, is pushing the Obama administration to arm and train rebel fighters, as well as boost humanitarian aid for the region.”
Who is this guy? One of the more loyal AIPAC agents:
AIPAC Agent Eliot Engel Goes After Obama Cabinet Pick As Being Too Anti-Israel
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/12/aipac-agent-eliot-engel-goes-after.html
“Before the House Democrats elected their ranking members, we started warning about the potential disaster of putting Zionist extremist Eliot Engel, whose loyalties are demonstrably more to the Likud Party in Israel than to the U.S.A., in as ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Engel, a New Dem and “Free” Trade cypher, was up against another Zionist, Brad Sherman, who isn’t as extreme as Engel. House Democratic leadership, though, was intent on filling every position they could with New Dems– while the Progressive Caucus dozed– and Sherman was persuaded to withdraw from the race. The Democrats are now stuck with, for all intents and purposes, an Israeli spy as their spokesperson on the committee…”

Posted by: вот так | Mar 18 2013 9:48 utc | 34

@ BOT TAK [#34/35],
Obomber’s morphing himself into the ‘Green Lantern Man’ with his ‘giving the go ahead’ on bombing Syria [Israel’s raid earlier this year].

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Mar 18 2013 11:21 utc | 36

A few howlers from a pundit’s piece in the Guardian that relies upon an unnamed Israeli official and a former (out of the loop) American official as its main sources:

Israeli warplanes destroyed a Syrian convoy at the end of January which Israeli officials say was taking Russian-made ground-to-air missiles to Hezbollah. Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has made clear that it would strike again in similar circumstances. A senior official said: “Maybe it would be better if Israel doesn’t do it, but who is going to deal with it?
“These missiles are not just a problem for Israel,” the official added. “They include [anti-ship] missiles, and who has the biggest navy in the Mediterranean?” – a reference to the US. Israeli military and government officials concede that it is unlikely that they will be able to persuade Washington to take military action in Syria unless chemical weapons are involved.
But they want to use Obama’s scheduled five hours of talks with Netanyahu on Wednesday evening to secure a guarantee of US support for more pre-emptive Israeli strikes, even if they risk provoking a cross-border conflict with Hezbollah. “What I hear over and over again from Israeli generals is that another war with Hezbollah is inevitable,” a western diplomat said, pointing to estimates that the Shia militia has up to 60,000 missiles hidden in southern Lebanese villages. He said neither side had anything to gain from a new conflict now.

First, based on the history of which Middle Eastern country has attacked American warships in the Mediterranean, Syria is a much lower threat than its next door neighbor.
Second, Israel constantly invades Lebanese airspace because it still thinks that it has a lot to gain from a conflict with Lebanon, including water, natural gas and another excuse for its Spartan mindset. Israel is just more cautious about instigating an incident with Lebanon since 2006 didn’t turn out as they had hoped.

Posted by: Rusty Pipes | Mar 18 2013 23:36 utc | 38

@ Rusty Pipes [#38],
Suddenly realize that what may seem something normal to me, might be conceived as graphic by others [youtube video]. Link to Brown-Moses blogspot: please scroll down until you’ve nearly reached the bottom of the page.

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Mar 19 2013 1:52 utc | 40

In other news, the grenade which killed 5 turks back in october came “definetly from NATO stock”, claims some colonel in austrian military paper.
[German] Source

Posted by: lex | Mar 19 2013 10:57 utc | 42

brian @ 41
don’t you find the same propaganda memes are played over and over?
From one locale to the other

Posted by: Penny | Mar 19 2013 12:12 utc | 44

Hey Jawbone:
I just updated my post. the US is rejecting the Syrian claim that rebels have used chemical of some sort as weapons
However, the article added to that post has a picture of one of the victims
A Syrian soldier. Regular Army.
I can only conclude that indeed the ‘rebels’, or as is more accurate NATO mercs, did fire some sort of chemicals onto the general populace of Aleppo, a portion that was most certainly still free of the rebels and their inhumane ways.
And the US is of course going to deny this move. What else can they do.

Posted by: Penny | Mar 19 2013 16:24 utc | 46

NATO Proxies Using WMD’s in Syria – Dozens Dead
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2013/03/nato-proxies-using-wmds-in-syria-dozens.html
“After a 10 year war/occupation in Iraq, the death of over a million people including thousands of US soldiers, all based on patently false claims of the nation possessing “weapons of mass destruction,” (WMDs), it is outrageous hypocrisy to see the West arming, funding, and politically backing terrorists in Syria who in fact both possess, and are now using such weapons against the Syrian people.
At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo. While NATO-backed terrorists claim they lack the “expertise” to even use chemical weapons, it was reported by CNN in their December 2012 article, “Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons,” that:
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.
And while some are attempting to suggest the use of chemical weapons by either side indicates “unsecured stockpiles” and a “security risk,” the weapons could have just as likely come from Libya. Aleppo is located near the Syrian-Turkish border. Had Libya’s looted stockpiles of chemical weapons been shipped to Syria, they would have passed through Turkey along with weapons sent from Libya by the US and thousands of Libyan terrorists who are admittedly operating inside Syria, and would most likely be used to target cities like Aleppo.
Worse yet, any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and along side Western-backed terrorists inside Syria.
Libya’s WMD’s are in Terrorist Hands
Libya’s arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 during the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation . Since then, Libya’s militants led by commanders of Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria…”
Remember the Britam hacked emails about using Libyan chem weapons? In all likelihood, those wmd plans were part of a real operation, which we are now seeing break surface. Probably the Russians go wind of the planned use of Libyan wmds by the west’s terrorists in Syria, and staged the hack to expose these plans. Rather than burning their real sources, they forged an email about the plan outline to show that they knew the west had planned to use Libyan wmds in Syria. Apparently, Israel, the USA and NATO felt arrogant enough they figured they could use chem weapons in Syria, anyway, and rely upon the zionist media to totally mislead the public as usual.

Posted by: вот так | Mar 20 2013 3:21 utc | 48

Rusty Pipes – 49
I’ve seen quite a bit of warning about the terrorists having been given chem weapons. Since around last December, the Syria government has stated repeatedly that the terrorists did have chem weapons and were planning to use them. The terrorists even demonstrated they had chem weapons back in last fall with videos of them killing animals with chem agents posted to youtube. The Syrian/Russian warnings were discussed in the non-western media, and mostly out of the zionist media loop. Likely the zionist media never strayed from the “Assad is about to kill his people with chem weapons” propaganda line. At least what little I read of their rubbish never did – I don’t usually read msm propaganda, reached my level of tolerance for the septic sludge 20+ years ago.

Posted by: вот так | Mar 20 2013 4:11 utc | 50

@ BOT TAK [#51]
Completely off topic: yeah those google translations can be quite funny at times. Here’s one of my customers expressing his thanks in Japanese + [google] translated:
先ほど無事に届きました♪お心配りもありがとうございました。大切に使わせていただきますね。 誠実に対応してくださりとても安心してお取引できました。気持ちの良いお取引をありがとうございました。 ぜひまたご縁がありますように。
Thank you for your jealousy as well ♪ that just arrived safely. We used carefully. I was able to trade with confidence that sure to respond in good faith. Thank you for a good deal of feeling. May you have your edge come again.

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Mar 20 2013 5:44 utc | 52

Breaking: #Libya – unconfirmed, that elements of Misurata militias are staging a Coup against US-puppet gov.
http://greenkomitet.ru/forum/forums-english/news/libya/1141-tripoli-libya-unconfiermed-news-gangs-misurata-making-military-coup.html …

Posted by: brian | Mar 20 2013 6:34 utc | 54

FYI: Syria has gone to the UN asking that they investigate the chemical use by NATO mercs

What good will come of this? I don’t know?
It does seem Syria is being very proactive, that much is good to see

Posted by: Penny | Mar 20 2013 16:47 utc | 56

thanks bot tak
I saw and put it through

Posted by: Penny | Mar 21 2013 11:19 utc | 58