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Syria: The Casualty Count
Time magazine has a piece about a video which shows a Syrian insurgency fighter cutting the heart and liver from a man and then eating it.
I swear by God, we will eat your hearts and your livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog! Takbeer! Heroes of Baba 'Amr, [inaudible] cut out their hearts to eat them!
The man has been seen in other videos. He is known as Abu Sakkar of Baba Amro, Homs, also known as Khaled Al Hamad. He was a senior commander of the "moderate" Al Farouq brigade. "Was" because he is now dead. And no, he did not die of food poisoning. The Farouq brigade is part of the Free Syrian Army which is supported by the United States.
The British intelligence operation known as Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has put up new numbers of the allegedly total killed in Syria (it is certainly not incidentally that these numbers are put out the day Cameron meets Obama):
More than 80 thousand people killed since the beginning of the Syrian uprising
As of 11/5/2013, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented the deaths of 70,257 people since the beginning of the Syrian revolt (in 18/3/2011), with the first martyr falling in Der'a that day.
The dead:
34,473 civilians, including: 4,788 children and 3,048 women.
2,368 unidentified persons (individually archived with pictures and video).
12,916 rebel fighters.
1,847 unidentified rebel fighters.
1,924 defectors.
16,729 regular soldiers.
The SOHR estimates that more than 12,000 pro-regime militia, Shabiha, and "informants" were killed by rebels.
First notice the weird "civilian" numbers. If the Syrian government is "indiscriminate" in killing "its own civilians" why is it that nine times more men have died than women? Were these really "civilians"?
Second: By this count the total number of killed insurgents (rebel fighters + unidentified rebel fighters + defectors) is about equal the number of regular soldiers killed.
Third: How come the number of civilians, insurgents and regular soldiers are counted exactly while the 12,000 allegedly killed "Shabiah" are only estimated? What is the difference between a "civilian" and an "informer"? Or is this new addition to the estimate just a Cameron-sees-Obama bonus?
But as unreliable these numbers may be it is still interesting to look at changes within these numbers.
Looking at some of the daily data the SOHR is putting out we find that a significant trend change has taken place. While the total numbers of dead soldiers and insurgents listed by the SOHR in this conflict is nearly equal, the daily reports over the last weeks show that now more than double as many insurgents die as regular soldiers.
Yesterday:
35 civilians, 25 rebel fighters, 2 defected soldiers, a defected officer, 8 unidentified rebel fighters and at least 17 regular soldiers.
Disregarding the "civilians" 36 fell on the insurgency side while 17 fell on the government side.
Friday (Saturday data is missing):
38 civilians, 36 rebel fighters, 1 defected captain, 2 defected soldiers, 8 unidentified rebel fighters and at least 18 regular soldiers.
47 insurgents versus 18 regular soldiers.
Thursday
27 civilians (including 12 children), 20 rebel fighters, 9 unidentified rebels, 18 regular soldiers, 5 defected soldiers.
34 insurgents versus 18 regular soldiers.
The trend of twice the casualties rate on the insurgency side than on the government side has been holding for some weeks now. As I noted earlier this changed ratio, as well as some other factors like their savage behavior, is likely diminishing the insurgency's personal capacity faster than it can attract and integrate new fighters.
@Toivos (#29) and Bevin(#6);
A revolution needs a mass movement by people, you should be able to mobilize the overwhelming majority of your people in order to call your movement a “revolution”.
If your movement -for whatever reason- cannot mobilize vast masses then it cannot be called a revolution. Just because a few students or some artists or intellectuals, or some labour activist in a developing country is thrown in jail and oppressed, that doesn’t turn his or her action -however progressive and brave it maybe- into a ‘revolution’.
The dilemma that the left faces (which in my opinion is not actually a dilemma, what they should do is pretty clear: TAKE AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST POSITION) is that there is no *mass* movement in middle east with which the left can agree and this perhaps has been explained the best by Tariq Ali himself, in a 2009 lecture :
“Now we can all wish that there were a mass, large, secular, socialist -preferably- party movement in that part of the world, but there isn’t, so what are we going to do? are we then going to stand back and say ‘no! the west has the right to re-colonize the world because there isn’t a political organization in that world that we can agree with?’ That is an all prosectarian position which actually pushes people in the direction of the west” (minutes 20:00-20:48)
What exists in that part of the world are two opposing forces: 1) Independent (not necessarily democratic but independent) forces, 2) pro-wesrtern, pro-imperialist forces.
So I ask the same question as Ali does: “so what are we going to do? are we then going to stand back and say: no! the west has the right to re-colonize the world because there isn’t a political organization in that world that we can agree with?”
The main problem with that petition is that it fantasizes about a ‘revolution’ or a ‘struggle’ in Syria which does not exist and even worse it convinces itself that the pro-western forces (ie. the rebels) are those ‘revolutionaries’ , and then they declare their solidarity with it. The ironic part is that this fact that there is no ‘struggle of masses for dignity in Syria’ is acknowledged by Finkelstein himself:
“I don’t think it’s much of a civil war because I don’t think the internal population has much say any longer in what’s going on.”
He later on goes on (in the same interview) to say that:
“It’s turned into a proxy war, with a large number of regional and global powers, including, regionally, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Iran having a dirty hand in what’s going on. And then Russia on one side, the U.S. on the other, having probably the most significant hand in what’s going on. And then there are of course the British and the French.”
But he does not elaborate on what the Iranian, or the Russians want and how that contradicts the interests of the Syrian masses. To be specific why Iranians and Russians are against the “rebels”? Do the Syrians have some natural resources which Iran/Russia covet? Do they want to monopolize the Syrian markets for their “exports” (which they don’t have and are far from having)? Are they interested in the cheap Syrian labour market for their own (Russian/Iranian) capital?
Today Iran’s sole interest in Syria is to keep it from becoming a US satellite and going in league with Israel. Is that against the Syrian people’s interests? What is the position of the “revolutionary” forces in Syria? Are they “struggling” against Asad’s collaboration with ISrael against Hezballah? What are they “struggling” for? Does the “dignity” for which they are “struggling” lie in collaboration with Saudies and Qataries?
This self-contradiction in their (ali’s and finkelstein’s) position is not peculiar to this petition. If you watch the vidoe of Tariq Ali’s lecture which I linked above in its entirety you will see what he says regarding the so-called “green movement” (the Iranian equivalent of the rebel forces in Syria) in minutes30:47-33:34:
“the crisis in Iran which has to be viewed soberly. I mean my heart was with the students and the others on the streets, desparately trying to get a way out of the regime that they feel is oppressive. But their problem was that the people they had chosen to back were some the most repressive produced within the system: ‘Mousavi’, who is he? this great defender of the liberal ideas? As prime minister of Iran he carried out massive attacks and repression of large numbers of left wing and trade union groups in the country directly responsible for sending people to death chambers. So let’s have a sense of perspective. Obviously people follow who they want to try and remove someone whom they regard as the bigger threat. Rafsanjani, Mousavi’s big backer, one of the big billionairs, who grew rich because of his role in the early days of the clerical regime. That is why he was defeated by ahmadinejad in the first place in 2005, it was a class based election the first time ahmadinejad won. Because these things matter even in that country. And the tragedy of this movement, which is a good movement by and large, is that it is trapped within the frame work of the system that exists in that country, till now, hopefully it will get out. But it is not a movement which has been able to transcend that, including in some of their slogans. And it is no good imagining that they can do that. And we know now from a lot of stuff that has appeared in the middle eastern press that they (ie. the mousavi supporters) were promised that if mousavi came to power they would immediately stop all backing for Hezbollah and Khaled Mashaal, in other words basically do a deal with Israelies. And all the opinion polls -I am not saying that there were no ballot rigging, I am sure that there was- but all the opinion polls including the polls carried by the new american foundation virtually showed the same results that the election elections produced. I just say that. Sometimes, over-eager civil servants and beurocrats creat a mess. So Iran from an internal point of view is a mass.”
Now on one hand QUITE CORRECTLY he points to the fact Mousavi is one of the worst elements coming out of the Islamic republic, with his hands in the blood of thousands of people, and that Rafsanjani is one of the most corrupt people ever produced by the Islamic republic, on the other hand he expresses that his heart is with Mousavi supporters. He says that Mousavi were desparately trying to get of a regime who is oppressing them and that he was sure that there was ballot rigging. But then he adds that all opinion polls including the ones by the new american foundation showed the same results that the elections produced!!! So how is he so sure of ballot rigging? And if the election results were showing the true will of majority then what does that reduce those “students” who were cring “give me back my vote!” to? Are they now reduced to people who wanted to steal an election and impose their own will on the majority? He himself says that those “students” (ie. the middle-class equivalent of the Iranian “rebels”) were trying to make a deal with the Israelies (and he is UNDENIABLLY right in that) and then he says that he considers their “movement” to be “a good movement by and large!”
Now how does that work???
Incidentally it is vey interesting to see the significant parallels between the pro-US/Israeli rebels in Syria, and the pro-US/Israeli “Mousavi” supporters in Iran.
Also Ali in that lecture mentions that the first ahmadinejad victory came as class-based victory in 2005. But very curiously he does not mention the same thing about the elections in 2009! 2009 elections were even more class-based than 2005’s elections. The elections slogans very clearly showed the class-based nature of the elections in 2009.
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | May 14 2013 17:48 utc | 68
Penny (90)
Well, playing out their intentions is part of the zato countries political/military arsenal – and a necessary one because zato countries *must* have, according to their ideology and democracy games, the moral high ground, if only construed and superficially.
Russia and China on the other hand, being “evil” nations and not democratic (which, of course, is bullshit) can care less about image. Their whole system isn’t based on image-only, and rather than preaching democracy almost religiously and driving their people into some kind of trance, they *are* democratic and, at the same time, have clear leadership.
Concerning the zato leaders lunacy I disagree in part. Evidently there is lunacy involved in the whole system and evidently some of zatos leading figures are on the fragile side in regard to their mental abilities (just think gw bush) but that isn’t important. Quite simply because that whole thing is just something in between games for the masses and a big fraud anyway.
On the other hand there must not be any doubt about the intellectual resources and cold rationality driving the machinery.
After all, one doesn’t leave a trillion dollar empire to be run by idiots.
I think it’s rather about a clash of systems or, more precisely, the collapse of the “western” system – with others like Russia at the same time growing more or less actively and constructively.
Simply (and somewhat rudely) put the “western” (zionistic driven and controlled) system is all about exploitation and amassing wealth, power and control for the very few. Sure, there has been tremendous economic growth – but not really for the people and at an insane price.
In a somewhat funny parallel communist states were quite similar (albeit with different focus) and both (major) communist states have learned a lot it seems; China on a less destructive and Russia in the brutal way. When China today makes lots of compromises with its people, up to the point of accepting and implementing capitalistic views and instruments to a certain degree, then because they have learned what the “western” system *can not* learn and implement for systemic reasons.
The real difference isn’t western style democracy vs. eastern style “half-way democracy”. The difference rather is “some real democracy along a profound democratic base” (Russia) vs. “flashy piercing democracy packaging and PR along a profound exploitation and diktatur core” (zusa).
The difference for the people is first and foremost that in Russias system they are sometimes less involved in the governmental processes (or the image thereof) but enjoy tangible pogress based on a solid base – while in the western system gigantesque resources are wasted for an immense soap opera based on a smaller and smaller base in reality, simply because what would be the base has been exploited and plundered. After all that’s the deal; the powers in the western games dont’t go for images and theater, they are after the real thing.
I eloborated that somewhat lengthy because it’s important. These are the real mechanisms at work. Unfortunately, this is also the reason for zatos “insane” attempts of (for them) vitally important expansion; they simply need fresh resources, in all regards, people, finances, natural resources, aso.
Befittingly zato countries did not build up the necessary (as in to defend their countries) military capabilities but rather oversized and clearly offensive capabilities. The extreme of this can be seen at the heart of the western system, zusa; their defense capabilities are frighteningly low (except to a degree, anti ICBM) and, quite interestingly, very much relying on offensive paradigms, rather than on real defense oriented systems.
If zatos current expansion attempts succeed, which is next to impossible, the western system can survive another couple of ten years – if not, which seems to be the case and by no means surprisingly the western system will collapse.
If I may dare a guess regarding zusas future I don’t see “the big war” coming up. I rather see a fractioning, typically in the form of state segregation and forming of new smaller country entities, during the collapse of zusa which, btw is not beginning right now but actually has been progressed quite far.
The triggers for the fractioning will be related to the soap opera, i.e. the increasingly visible ignorance of their constitution and other points and issues which are tell-tale attributes of a show.
All Russia and China must do is to not allow further zato expansion and then just sit and watch (and, of course, continue their own slower but well-based progress). Syria *will* turn out to be another nail in zusas coffin.
Posted by: Mr. Pragma | May 16 2013 3:10 utc | 96
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