The “Destroyer Speech” intended primarily to address his loyalists, true believers, and his regional allies and assured them of his commitments to a “Solution” that will keep the real power and “regional interest” at the hand of the regime. At the same time he tossed a message to the oppositions and the uncommitted western powers that he is not ready to abandon the fight and will stay the course of killing and destruction based on the in-progress security solution.
A friend asked me last night of my predictions and what basher will propose!, my brief reply was: The regime is the Assad’s , and his loyalists WILL NOT lay aside their arms and will continue on fighting as long as Bashar is still holding the helm, anything else is just a delusions..

Did the accidental collision (head-to-chin) during the menhabek huddle/onrush result in a whiplash injury? Assad should get his neck examined.

He’ll be lucky to get away with only a sore chin.

Very much expected speech and if the opposition is asking him to apologize for his father sins,they will never going to get it(apology in the middle East is considered weakness).
As for the 60000 Syrians who lost their lives in the last two years,the regime and opposition bares equal responsibilities.
In a short sentence what he is saying is :if you don’t like what I am proposing,go and tile the sea.
We have to get ready for few more tournament where blood ,destruction and death are the ingredients in it and we will be going in a vicious cycle for a while.

Meanwhile in other news:

Rasputin gets his Green Card.

I would be surprised that Bashar Al Assad would make that speech without the agreement of his allies, principally Russia. I also think that Ibrahimi condoned it as it reflects very closely the Geneva agreement

I think the purpose of that speech has many folds. Some of them:

– Bashar shows that he is not weak and ‘living in fear’ as the media have lately reported.

– He reiterated his support for the Palestinians and the resistance, in contrast with the opposition who does dare spell out their support for fear of displeasing their western sponsors.
The Resistance issue is a ‘culture’ common to all Arabs and that will strike a cord with the non-oil Arabs.

– He offered officially a dialog followed by a transitional government, in contrast with the opposition who want to skip the dialog and impose a foreign sponsored government.

– He is showing that, despite the media propaganda, the army is cohesive and determined to re establish its authority in the whole country.

– By asking the foreign power to stop providing weapons he is putting them in front of their dilemma: Helping the spread of an uncontrollable terrorism or helping the Syrians find a solution to their internal disagreements.
…
It is a start and the official position of the Syrian government spelled out. The ball is now in the opposition to come with a united official counter proposal.

Surprise: After encouraging it, is Israel getting worried about Bashar’s fall?

Israel warily watches shifts across its frontier with Syria

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/netanyahu-says-israel-will-step-up-efforts-to-protect-border-with-syria-from-radical-islamist-groups/2013/01/06/aada3de0-581b-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html

Israeli officials say they have two main concerns should Assad be overthrown: that Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants, such as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon, and that a breakdown of security in Syria, particularly near the Golan frontier, could lead to militant attacks against Israeli targets across the cease-fire line.

In public remarks Sunday at the weekly meeting of his cabinet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Syrian forces had pulled back from the frontier area, replaced by radical Islamist groups. While those militants are for now fighting against the Syrian regime, Israeli officials are concerned that once Assad is ousted, they could turn their attention to Israel.

Analysis
James Reynolds
BBC News

The most lasting image from Mr Assad’s appearance may come from the moments after his speech. Dozens of supporters surged towards the president – almost prefiguring the frenzy that might happen if the opposition got to him. The president waved, and struggled to leave the stage. For Syria’s opposition, that is the entire problem.

I just watched the speech. I thought the president looked very confident, as if he is delivering a victory speech. I’m sure the recent military progress on the ground by the Syrian Army made this possible. But he also offered a plan for reconciliation that I think represents a good start. I believe and hope that some of the opposition, mainly the internal one, will respond positively to this plan. I also believe that most of the external opposition will eventually be discounted and fade away as irrelevant, as they don’t have any tangible presence or support inside Syria.

The timing and contents of the speech seems to suggest that general consensus have been reached among the key players, namely Russia and the US, following Brahimi’s latest mediation round. Anecdotic evidence of that can be found in yesterday’s Saudi/Egyptian statement about the need for peaceful end to Syria’s crisis; and in today’s call by the Saudi “mufti” against jihad in Syria. Having said that, I think this is far from over. While I believe the violent stage of this war may soon subside or be limited only to clean up the country from Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the political fight is just starting and is likely to be rocky, but in my opinion the end results will most likely yield a far more democratic and reformed system. Saving the country and keeping it secular is what I am most concerned about.

As for those who keep calling for Bashar to step down before any negotiation starts, all I can say is let the votes count before such demand is made…and by that I mean the votes of the Syrian people, not foreign interests or their armed representative on the inside. Fair elections supervised by the UN will tell us who should step down; not the US, France, England and their agents in the region.

Salam

Assad’s speech will go down as one of the greatest speeches in history. Syria is lucky to have such a man leading her during wartime.

I am very proud of Syria today.

Revenire:

You idolize Assad, we got it. Did it ever occur to you that you are an occultist?

You are proud of Syria because your idol and his cult (including Sunnis) destroyed Syria chasing “terrorist” for 2 years. He should hang.

After Louay Safi at Al Jazeera, Hague in a twitter and Cathy Ashton in Brussels, from Bakkourland comes FSA’s Ryad al Assaad long waited signs of life

Opposition reactions were scathing. Colonel Riad al-Asaad of the FSA commented: “Assad speech business as usual. Death, destruction, starvation, detention, rape, torture, displacement … struggling to find the positive bits.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/06/syrian-opposition-bashar-al-assad

#10 Hussam

In the contrary if the Syrian army is able to crush Al Qaeda in Syria, something the USA has failed to do in Afghanistan and is failing in Yemen and Mali now, Bashar al Assad should be hailed a hero.

This is a line from NY Times:
“The tenor of Mr. Assad’s speech is likely to raise the question of whether Mr. Brahimi’s mission serves any purpose; there was no immediate comment from him or his staff”
Assad chose not to compromise, his position is a match to millitants on the other side who believe that only a victory will end this war, in a way that is why Syria is still a third world country. Notice that free and fair elections are not on the ” to do list” , extremists think the country is too small to accept two candidates for any given position, they see their opponents as enemies or agents of foreign nations.
Not every thing Assad said was empty or false, his reference to armed rebels foreign connection and their destructive campaign against people and stones alike is accepted by many Syrians along with his dismissal of expat opposition, however, if armed rebels are terrorists and expat opposition figures are foreign agents, who is left to negotiate with the regime ? Assad clearly wants to choose both his friends and his acceptable ” opposition”, his advisors are telling him that he is winning,that is why he sounded cocky, he should have resigned a long time ago, I am disappointed that the army did not force him to leave,after all,it is the army ,not the regime heads and their circle of thugs, who is paying the price of this bloody war.

Great news, great speech, and great proposals, and Thyria is winning and the WW conspiracy will be defeated. The BRICS and other countries are with us. We have millions applying for THyrian citizenship and we are having our borders flooded with immigrants. Our great leader’s picture is being downloaded across the globe by adoring fans, and as a matter of fact places and parks and monuments are being nominated in his name.

The West has exported his terrorists to Thyria and we are going to defeat both. Then we can have a cup of coffee and work on the iPad to create a new constitution that would fit Thyria’s vision of the future. As a matter of fact the UNESCO just convened an extraordinary session to adopt the speech as one of humanity’s legacy and will be immortalized. In the same token the constitution will be now studied by groups of scholars around the world to consider emulating the Dear Leader’s vision for the future of Thyria and the world.

The guy is nitwit. But a criminal nitwit at that with weapons on hand and bunch of animals in his zoo called Somaria Alathad.

Resistance to Israel and the Imperial Hegemony my foo.

This is going nowhere and we will have Lakhdar resign and then Ban will appoint a new envoy and Laughvrov will pontificate and under the guise of refusing regime change will actually lead to a creation of multiple regimes in the entire ME.

Cheers
PS
I have printed the speech and I am memorizing it and my cat and my dog are actually watching with adoring eyes as I read it to them.

It seems they think at the Guardian that trhowing shoes towards somebody is not a kind of insult in western countries.We learn interesting things everyday.

Zoo:

He will never succeed, stop dreaming. Please stop, it’s not healthy. The US went into overdrive to hunt Al-Qaeda which it fed from one hand and killed with the other.

Do you really believe that the majority of Syrians would accept any Assadi or Ba’athi to govern Syria ever again?

Observer:

Don’t worry a new Arwad Hotel is going up in Tar-tuzz for the Qurdahis to sleep in. The Prethident can spend his last few days there where he will be holed up with his Ipad…negotiating the escape route Athma.

http://www.sana-syria.com/eng/33/2012/11/25/454237.htm

Hussam,

Are you the same Hussam who used to post on SC when I started?

Hi Tara:

Yes, that’s me. I am sick with a bad flu this weekend and got the itch again. I won’t be here for long though.

I got involved in some charitable meaningful projects which I found more worthy of time than this Human Zoo 🙂

Cheers

First reaction from US State Department:

“Assad speech is another attempt to hang on to power”

Ok, so what does that mean?

What else is the State Department telling us that we don’t already know?

“Do you really believe that the majority of Syrians would accept any Assadi or Ba’athi to govern Syria ever again?”

Perhaps we are in another universe but haven’t the majority of Syrians already done just that? How else would Assad still be president? How else would the army be able to cleanse the rats from Syria?

Most Syrians support Assad and you had a little taste of what the 2014 elections will look like today when the screaming mobs of supporters cheered on President Assad.

The new Bashar speech by Songa from the
Chinese revelution
http://youtu.be/HGFeprXZwUo

#18 Visitor

That’s Hillary.. the blog clot effect

“يا رب يا جبار تحيمنا البشار
قل هو الاسد حامي البلد خير ولد لخير تلد
طلبنا من الله المدد فارسل لنا الاسد”

I was wrong when I said Bashar is a prophet. He is higher in ranking than prophets. Bashar is not a cult, he is a religion and God for all mankind.

Summary of the divine speech in Arabic

“بدكم حوار بشروطنا خلينا نتحاور ما بدكم يلا خروها”

Summary of the divine speech in Arabic

“بدكم حوار بشروطنا خلينا نتحاور ما بدكم يلا ايدكم و ما تعطي”

According to NBN, 360 millions followed President Bashar’s speech.
How many have followed ‘president’ Al Khatib speech?

A speech is a speech, Assad wants first and foremost to assure his allies, he waited until the attack on Damascus failed, Aleepo invasion came to a standstill and Darayya impending fall to deliver a speech at the Opera House looking “victorious” and defiant. In reality, the outcome of this conflict is now in the hands of Russia and the US, not HBJ and the GCC pimps (Erdo included), if Obama listens to the old guards he will choose to reach a deal with Russia that spares him and his european friends expensive pains and pennies, but Obama wants a face-saving deal which either does not exist yet or is still a secret, that deal must have few concessions that Obama can take to sell his decision not to fight to his partners and friends.
I noticed a number of reports on rebels complaining about lack of funding and arms in the last 6 months, if these reports are confirmed and the stalemate on the ground persists,then you can say that the US, the EU and the GCC (Turkey too) have decided to abandon the rebels and allow the regime to round up islamist groups.

Every prophecy in the old testament is perfectly fitting Bashar

“عندها ترى الغيلان و الجرذان هاربة من الضوء اللامع في الشارع القديم هو ضوء الرب”

Those rats are the terrorists running away from the streets of Damascus after Bashar showed his sword of light.

# 22,

We must execute Bashar and all his thugs in order to save Syria.
their bodies must be burnt and the ashes thrown to the sea in order not to desecrate Syrian soil.

What do you think?

Zoo @22,

But the State Dept. also says Assad must go,

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/05/258813.html

“We must execute Bashar and all his thugs in order to save Syria.
their bodies must be burnt and the ashes thrown to the sea in order not to desecrate Syrian soil.”

I say Bashar is safe safe safe even if he walks into fire because he is the one. All those who follow Bashar should be assured safety and prosper.

The Syrian Electronic Army will soon reveal a series, titled “The Truth, Documented” by hacking the emails and websites of some of the ministries that are enemies to Syria.

Breaking News Network knew in sources in the Syrian Electronic Army that the first episode that will be broadcasted on Monday 7-1-2013 will include leaks of Qatari governmental documents, including the amounts of money that were paid by Prince Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani to some Arab presidents to stand against Syria politically.

The first episode will also show the Qatari – Turkish plans to weaken Syria, plus losses of millions of dollars to buy associations, including one in Paris.

The other series will reveal the parts that were played by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other Arab countries in the Syrian crisis, where the emails and documents will be published from the leaks website of the Syrian Electronic Army.

http://leaks.syrian-es.org/

صحيفة الحياة:الامانة العامة للامم المتحدة تتشاور مع عدد من الدول للتأكد من استعدادها لارسال قوات حفظ سلام دولية الى سورية، وأشارت المصادر الى ان عدداً من الدول رد على طلب الامم المتحدة مستفسراً عن طبيعة المهمة الموكلة الى هذه القوات وعددها وما اذا كانت جزءاً من”صفقة كاملة” تتناول العملية السياسية ام ترمي فقط الى وقف العنف .
وأشارت المصادر الى ان بعض الدول شدد على ضرورة “توافر سلام او عملية سياسية لحمايتها” وان تكون المهمة تتعلق بـ “حفظ” السلام وليس “مراقبة” وقف العنف كما حصل في تجربتي المراقبين العرب والدوليين سابقاً. كما تناولت استفسارت دول اخرى، وماذا اذا كان قرار ارسال القوات بموجب الفصل السادس ام الفصل السابع من ميثاق الامم المتحدة، اضافة الى اسئلة عن عدد القوات وما اذا كان بحدود ثلاثة آلاف ام ثلاثين الفاً واماكن انتشارها وما اذا كان فقط في دمشق ام في باقي الاراضي السورية.
وأوضحت المصادر الدولية ان خطة ارسال المراقبين هي “احتياطية” وانه لم يتخذ قرار في ذلك بعد، وان الهدف من اجراء اتصالات رسمية مع عدد من الدول هو “الاستعداد لتنفيذ اي قرار دولي يصدر من مجلس الامن في حال حصول تفاهم روسي – اميركي يعمل المبعوث الدولي – العربي الاخضر الابراهيمي عليه.
Morsi ,who may be asked to send troops,is making it harder for his FM to conduct business by looking more militant than his own FM:
القاهرة، مصر (CNN)– أكد الرئيس المصري، محمد مرسي، في مقابلة حصرية مع
، تأييده للمطالب الداعية إلى محاكمة الرئيس السوري، بشار الأسد، أمام محكمة جرائم الحرب الدولية، فيما يُعد واحداً من أقوى ردود الفعل الصادرة من القاهرة، ضد النظام الحاكم في دمشق.

In most countries opera houses are oases of culture, places where the arts are worshiped. Well Ghadaffi used the beautiful Tripoli opera house ( a leftover from the Italians) to stage some berber dance festivals. And Assad impured this place with not only his presence and moronic speech but also with chants many will regret afterwards.

I think this article deserves a second post.

Every Place is Khalidiya
by Jennifer Mackenzie

A trip to the Damascus grave of Dr. Ali Shariati, revolutionary, as the shelling in Homs, Syria began.

“In Iran, if someone was speaking to the BBC, he would be taken from his house the next morning—no need to wait around for weeks,” W. adds dismissively.

In Syria, in contrast, according to a defected officer quoted by Amnesty International, none of the heads of security branches knows how to turn on a computer.

“Syria is part of Iran,” B. declares. “They will never let it go.”

http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dispatch/every-place-is-khalidiya/#.UOmvtagNOqo.twitter

Visitor

Please, use another source than al Arabya and report the exact words used by Vicky Nuland not the recanted interpretations by the journalists ( she said that..).

Until now Hillary and Catherine Ashton have been careful in using the sentence “Step aside” and they never used “Step down”. “Step aside” implies something temporary.
The use of these words is not accidental.

32. Juergen said:

“In most countries opera houses are oases of culture, places where the arts are worshiped.”

In none of the GCC countries there are any Opera house to worship culture and arts. They have their belly dancing in their palace.

Zoo

The Syrians or better the Damascenes I know would never compare themselves with any of the GCC countries. Syrians know better.

It looks that the opposition fell into a trap.

Most media are reporting that Assad has offered a political solution and the opposition has rejected it.
The ball is now in the opposition camp to announce what plan they propose, otherwise they’ll appear to be the ones who are obstructing the international peace effort and ignoring the humanitarian needs of the Syrians trapped in Syria as well as the countries who are hosting refugees.

Juergen

So how come that some Syrians allow themselves to accept money and weapons from Qatar and KSA to kill other Syrians?
If they ‘know better’, where is their pride?

I actually read SANA first and Addounia second

Here is what I found on the IATA tracking of airports record for both Aleppo and Damascus airports

{No Current Flight Positions Available
We do not have positional data for flights departing or arriving at this airport at this time.
Please check again later.

Thanks for using our airport tracker.}

Too bad, I had just tried to book a flight for a superb Opera performance in Damascus. The only critique I read is that the lead singer has a tongue defect and therefore some of his words can be confusing.

At the last performance, the mob had to be restrained and several young female fans fainted the moment he arrived on the scene.

Meanwhile I do know that the dollar to the pound exchange is now at a 100.

Puccini or Verdi tonight?

I think we have Kim Jong Il or one of those stooges trying to outperform this superb lead singer and actor with a pronunciation defect.

I guess the mob scene is a rehearsal for the extreme mourning we saw when the NK Dear Leader died.

Now that was Operatic on a Grand Scale.

Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-‘Arifi: Islam Does Not Set a Minimum Age for Marriage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LJonb7HO_U

__________________________________________________________________

No doubt the lying Paki will be denying this story and calling it a hoax too!

ZOO why should you compare us to the GCC? This is most unfair. I would think that the great Democratic Republic of North Korea is a more befitting example and model after all they have superb operas and superb stadium performances and they have wonderful technological advances and we just signed a deal with them to supply electricity generates as they are the most illuminated country on earth as the Google maps at night show.

Their missile technology has put superb equipment in space and the 24 hour per day broadcast of the news in every household is actually a marvel of technological breakthrough.

I wish that the Opera house of Damascus would really learn from the performances that they have in Pyong Yang or whatever the name of the city of the Great Leader.

There they really have mountains that deliver Lions you know.

Cheers

Ha ha as long as you terrorist apes are sitting here jawboning over the GREAT speech of the president of Syria I am happy. Our boys are vaporizing the rats all over Syria today.

Revenire:

We are in the same universe, except you and your likes are in the animal kingdom. It don’t respect your opinion because there was never an election in Syria. Your question as to why he is still in power is because of brut force. A pencil neck was installed to lead the clan. I wouldn have no problem with a noble person from any sect be a Syrian leader, but what we have is the seed of mafiat Hafez.

My president could have fired a precision guided missile into the opera house before the self-appointed giraffe finished his delightful speech to his accomplices.

But no, that’s only something we do for the Libyans (why I don’t know). Our soft-ball media won’t ask “the annointed one” why 60000 Syrians aren’t worth the price of one missile.

#5. ZOO,

Ah now I see why you hedged and sidestepped when asked to comment on the speech in the previous thread.

You were waiting for clarification of the official line – which you have now delivered.

REVENIRE

Keep up the the extreme satire in your hilarious praise of Assad and his speech, giggling as you type.

You’ve succeeded – it’s actually funny.

Zoo @32,

You look so embarassingly idiotic when you try to project the image of an expert that you definitely are not. In other words learn English correctly and then come back here.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary,

Step aside = Step down

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/step%20aside

IDIOT.

The use of upper case is intentional.

Secondly, Al-Arabiya has won the international golden award for five years in a row. You want me to quote SANA? You cannot be serious

OBSERVER #38 said: “I guess the mob scene is a rehearsal for the extreme mourning we saw when the NK Dear Leader died.”

I think you’ve hit on it.

If a N Korean didn’t cry their life was at risk.

Visitor

You are right, they are somehow synonymous.
Then I was wrong in seeing a slight difference in meaning.
As usual you are “brilliant”, Dad

A confident, defiant and visionary speech from President Bashar Al Assad today!

All this media talk of imminent soonite victory is exactly what it is: TALK!

Cyber jihadis on here get all excited and aroused when they hear news of real life jihadis “capturing” a Syrian Air Force base; naively believing the story or thinking it signifies a strategic success. Fact is the Syrian military either has abandoned the base a longtime ago or has recaptured it shortly afterwards; just like how these simian salafis found out for themselves!

I am glad love-you-forever- worship- you-always got a dose of affection today from their Batta. It was a long due. I did not watch it or even read about it. Not interested in quack-quack kind of speech. Was their any public display of toes worshiping known from the Mnhebaks?

Good comment by Syrian journalist and analyst Hassan Hassan.

Article: Assad offers only more of the same – mukhabarat brutality

Excerpts:

” …The speech yesterday should remind the world that this dictator has no place in a future Syria and that support for the rebels is the only way forward.

Russia probably pressured on Al Assad to announce a plan of reconciliation. But the speech sounded more vindictive, dismissive and exclusivist than even his previous bombast. For example, he said the plan was directed at only segments of the opposition, and that “those who reject the offer, I say to them: why would you reject an offer that was not meant for you in the first place?” In other points, he emphasised vengeance rather than reconciliation. He also blamed the rebels for the destruction of infrastructure and for cutting off electricity and communications.

“Syria accepts advice but never accepts orders,” he said. “All of what you heard in the past in terms of plans and initiatives were soap bubbles, just like the [Arab] Spring.”

It was clear that he tried to sound steadfast, but his voice betrayed him several times. And before his departure from the room, the crowds chanted “may God protect you” – a chant that is used when someone is threatened. The usual party line is “with our soul blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you”.
– – – –
The proposal of a new constitution is merely a red herring. Syrians did not rise up against the constitution, nor have they demanded constitutional change. People rose up against brutality, and the fact that the existing constitution was never honoured – the mukhabarat apparatus has dominated almost every aspect of Syrian life. The immediate cause of the uprising in Deraa was the mukhabarat, who arrested and tortured school boys for writing anti-regime graffiti and then humiliated their families.

Nor did Syrians rise up to be included in a coalition government. Any government that includes these same criminals will be no different.

People rose up against the security apparatus that has plagued Syrian society, prevented progress, infringed on individual and public liberties, and tortured and killed tens of thousands of Syrians. These crimes, so obvious during this uprising, have been a normal state of affairs even during periods of calm. If a transition does not affect Al Assad, the mukhabarat apparatus and the army structure, then what does it offer?

Compromise does not exist in the regime’s lexicon: political settlement means surrender, dialogue means subjugation, and a Syrian-Syrian solution means leaving Syrians to the regime’s mercy.

If the world wants to help Syrians, there is only one way: step up support for the rebels. The Assad speech was a sign of desperation. Recent moves, including the recognition of the opposition and the pledges of support, can work. More support for the rebels only increases the chances of a political settlement, which might even include safe passage for Al Assad. But a solution cannot come on his terms.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/assad-offers-only-more-of-the-same-mukhabarat-brutality#ixzz2HErFcYc7

Zoo @47,

DAD?

NOT AGAIN!

Listen, I tried to find you a Turkish buyer to become your new master. No one was interested.

Why don’t you try to sell yourself to a mullah ape?

If you are a female, you could use this muta3a thing if you want.

Otherwise, good luck!

Visitor

As you treat people like children, giving them advices, correcting them and treating them as idiots, you appear to have the profile of an old fashioned “dad”.
Sorry if you are an old Ma’ hooked on Bette Davis

#43 Alluh Who Akbar

President Obama was elected you cretin! The US no longer assassinates foreign heads of state; if you think this should be changed perhaps you can write a petition and see how much support you have? I dare you: cyber jihadi!

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/

Why do you soonites ALWAYS whine about US Presidents whether it be: Obama, Bush Jnr, Clinton or Bush Snr?

Zoo @52,

It was you who asked for sex on this site and you probably meant muta3a until I realized what you are really up to.

I do realize that you do not meet the specs. So your only option is muta3a with mullah apes.

To me muta3a is out of the question not to mention that I would not trade what I have for a mediocre below average muta3a slave entity.

It looks like you would have to put up with different ape every night for the rest of your life.

# 32. JUERGEN

I agree that beautifully written article about inside the “Iranian zone” in Damascus deserves re-posting.

I was reading somewhere how Iran had bought large tracts of the surrounding suburbs and started bulldozing ancient traditional Syrian neighborhoods.

Visitor

You seem to have an unhealthy fixation on apes. Where you inspired by Morsi saying that his favorite movie was The Planet of the Apes?
I guess it’s your favorite too

Did you people see the aura around our president while he was giving his divine speech?

Zoo @56,

You realize that quite often you guess wrong. We just identified two such shortcomings.

That is one of the reasons I couldn’t find you a decent master!

If we continue like this you will hit the 50% of total comments score today and I will be the runner up.

No promises I will keep up tomorrow. To be more accurate, I will definitely not keep up tomorrow. Lots to do and travelling soon.

Desperate Syrian Refugees Selling Off Daughters To Wealthy Libyan Men

Some Syrian refugees, fleeing the devastation in their home country after more than 18 months of a brutal government crackdown against rebels, are being forced to sell off their daughters, especially to wealthy Libyans, for much-needed cash.

http://www.ibtimes.com/desperate-syrian-refugees-selling-daughters-wealthy-libyan-men-794156

__________________________________________________________________

Wretched stupid shameless soonites; there is no depths to which they won’t sink to for their vile lust for money & power!

The speech was dismissed by the rest of the world as oink-oink.  With a speech like this, I think Asma will force him to sleep under the bed tonight.

The state department said a peace plan outlined by Mr Assad was “detached from reality”, calling it “another attempt by the regime to cling to power”.

The EU reacted by restating that the Syrian president had “to step aside and allow for a political transition”.

He denounced opponents as “enemies of God and puppets of the West” and said Syria wanted to negotiate with the “master not the servants”.
…

In Washington, state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the speech was “yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people’s goal of a political transition”.

She added that the initiative “is detached from reality” and undermines efforts by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

She repeated calls for President Assad to leave office – as did EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

“We maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition,” Baroness Ashton’s office said in a statement.
…
The most lasting image from Mr Assad’s appearance may come from the moments after his speech. Dozens of supporters surged towards the president – almost prefiguring the frenzy that might happen if the opposition got to him. The president waved, and struggled to leave the stage. For Syria’s opposition, that is the entire problem.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called his remarks “repetitions of what he’s said all along”, while UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said “the empty promises of reform fool no-one”.
(…)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20928361

Interesting piece on Iran’s investment and expectations for its role in Syria.

Article: Iran’s economic stake in Syria.

By Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-Syrian, is scholar, policy analyst, and human rights

Many analyses have been made about Iran’s strategic and geopolitical role in the Syrian regime, but not enough attention has been paid to the crucial and changing economic relations between the two countries. By analyzing Iran-Syria relations through this prism, one can shed light on the more nuanced, unconventional, and complicated aspects of Iran’s role in Syria.

Iran has historically invested a considerable amount of money, resources, skilled forces, and labor in Syria. These investments were ratcheted up, particularly, in the last few years before uprisings began erupting in March 2011 across Syria. Although large sums of money and resources were allocated to investments in Syrian transportation and infrastructure, Iranian and Syrian economic ties are not limited to these spheres. A few months before the popular uprisings were ignited, Iranian authorities signed a $10 billion natural gas agreement with Syria and Iraq for the construction of gas pipeline that would start in Iran, run through Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean, and reach several Western countries. According to the agreement, Iraq and Syria would receive a specified amount of cubic meters of natural gas per day. This proposal was endorsed by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who also supported the allocation of $5.8 billion in aid to Syria by Iran’s Center for Strategic Research (CSR), which concentrates on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategies in six different arenas including Foreign Policy Research, Middle East and Persian Gulf research, and International political economy research.

Another unique and significant agreement that was signed before the crisis broke out in Syria was a proposal to establish a joint bank in Damascus, 60 percent of which the Iranian government would own. The agreement would have allowed Iran to identify other financial hubs with which to conduct its transactions in Syria. At the time, Syrian banks were allowed to engage in trade and transactions with the West, prior to sanctions imposed after the start of the conflict. Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed an even more comprehensive agreement shortly before the uprisings seeking to establish a regional economic bloc. As a result of this proposal, a 17-article agreement was signed which focused on “trade, investment, planning and statistics, industries, air, naval and rail transportation, communication and information technology, health, agriculture, [and] tourism.”

The recent rounds of international sanctions imposed on Syria have led to the suspension of all former agreements that Iran was attempting secure in the region, which has put tremendous pressure on Iran. The Syrian pound (SYR) has lost 25 percent of its spending power falling from 47 SYR to $1 USD to 67 SYR to $1 USD. The Syrian Ministry of Economy has stated that food prices have surged dramatically. The prices of some items have increased by up to 37 percent since the popular uprisings began. Due to increases in military expenditures, public expenditures increased by $19 billion in 2011. Meanwhile, public revenue has decreased by $2.31 billion.

Although Iranian officials have frequently pointed out that their economic alliance would not be shaken by the security issues since the uprisings began, Syrian state companies as and business operators have encountered growing difficulties and obstacles in trading and reaching deals with Iran due to the restrictions on dollar transactions. The Iranian and Syrian economic alliance has operated between multi-level contracts of state and semi-private organizations through the adoption of the dollar for transactions, which were worth billions of dollars. However, regulations imposed by the United States, European Union, and other Arab Gulf states after the start of the conflict have made it difficult to utilize and source foreign currencies through the Syrian Central Bank.

These economic pressures on both countries pushed Iran and Syria to sign a symbolic free trade agreement on December 13, 2011. The move was an attempt to diminish the effects of economic sanctions imposed by the United States, EU, and some members of the Arab League, as well as reduce trade hurdles that have emerged due to the progress of rebels, the kidnapping of some Iranians in Damascus, and continued insecurity. According to the recent agreement, trade will be further liberalized between the state-owned companies and both countries declared that they would decrease custom fees in order to facilitate trading and business. Particularly, Syria has decided to reduce fees on Syrian goods exported to Iran by 60 percent in order to ratchet up the bilateral trade. Minister of Economy and Trade Mohammad Nidal al-Cha’ar pointed out at the Syrian-Iranian committee meeting “The road to Iran has always been paved for the two countries.”

These recent financial agreements are crucial for both countries, but particularly Syria, in order to open up a new market for its products and increase revenue. These agreements are believed to increase Iran and Syria’s annual trade volume to $5 billion. Allaedin Boroujerdi stated that the recent agreements were “a firm response” to the United States and its Western allies “investing billions of dollars to change the political structure of the Syrian government.” They also are intended to offer the needed moral and economic support for Assad’s isolated regime as well as the Iranian government.

Without doubt, Iran has tremendous geopolitical and strategic interests in Syria, but the country has additionally become a crucial economic lifeline for Iran. As both countries become increasingly isolated from the international community their economic ties have become exceedingly more important. However, billions of dollars in Iranian investments have been suspended with the current crisis in Syria. And until there is a resolution to the nearing two-year conflict, with either Assad regaining control or the establishment of a new government, economic conditions will continue to be threatened.

Source: Foreign Policy, January 6 2013
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/01/04/irans_economic_stake_in_syria

1. Already built
http://www.rohmuscat.org.om/

2. Planned a while a go, but project being revived now
http://arabiangazette.com/downtown-dubai-cultural-district/

I can assure you Ali Deek will never be invited to either place with his low class screeches.

Quote from article I posted above on Iran’s stake in Syria:

“{Iranian foreign policy apparatchik] Allaedin Boroujerdi stated that the recent agreements were “a firm response” to the United States and its Western allies “investing billions of dollars to change the political structure of the Syrian government.”

COMMENT: They have? Wow. Where? How?

OMG,

Menhebekji idiots will not be able to sleep tonight when they see the Muscat and Dubai opera houses.

Bashar will probably commit suicide.

Ali Deek may change to a Salafi and even grow a beard just to get in.

Homs after the president’s speech:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d98_1357513002

What a day! I wish Assad could be president forever. Hopefully his children will go into politics.

May I suggest zoo and visitor exchange emails and keep up the dialogue outside SC. The exchange of insults may be a front for an unspoken attraction. It can annoy some.

Hey Hamster #62, now that’s what we can call REAL Opera Houses. Thanks.

So what was ZOO thinking when he wrote in #34: “In none of the GCC countries there are any Opera house to worship culture and arts. They have their belly dancing in their palace.”

Was he hoping we wouldn’t notice that magnificent Opera House in Oman with its rich cultural feast and the amazing Opera House and cultural precinct planned for Dubai?

And Qatar’s Opera House aint bad, sitting in their Katara cultural precinct: http://qatarphilharmonicorchestra.org/about-us/see-where-we-play/operahouse-audience/. Though they also use their magnificent Museum of Islamic Art as a venue for classical music festivals and the like: http://qatarphilharmonicorchestra.org/events/chamber-music-at-mia-3/

Assad’s only interest in Opera Houses and culture was demonstrated by his use of it yesterday. Belly dancing would have been an upmarket intellectual and cultural event compared with his performance.

Roll on the day when Syrians have access to top quality cultural venues and activities.

# 66,

Your suggestion is noted but will not be observed.

Skip that which you do not like.

No one cares about opulent opera houses built by slaves of corrupt Gulf princes and emirs installed by “Great” Britain to secure oil. They can all go to hell and take their opera houses with them!

Syria has a president who is a man of the people and he gave Syria a great gift today. Let’s respect that fact.

Yes. Peasants do not care about opera houses for sure.

Only peasants do not care about opera houses.

66. Baran said:

May I suggest zoo and visitor exchange emails and keep up the dialogue outside SC. The exchange of insults may be a front for an unspoken attraction. It can annoy some.

I agree. Visitor can be vulgar. But what he suggests makes sense. We do not have to read him.

The death or the near death of the king is highly exaggerated. President Assad is standing firm, and Syria as a secular state will survive ,

Syria is no longer a state.

Nothing new. The war continues.

The Finitiative!

Whether it takes a week, a month, a year or a decade, it does not matter, Assad’s latest initiative is his final political act. By appearing so out-of-touch with reality, Assad has shown that he is not in control of his own regime. He, in fact, is the puppet, his bubble long burst. The question, therefore, is: who’s really running the show at this stage? And what do they want?

Sunday January 6, 2013

Today’s Death Toll: 101, including 2 children and 10 women: 28 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs, 22 in Aleppo, 14 in Daraa, 13 in Homs (most of them in Tasneen), 10 in Hama, 10 in Deir Ezzor, 3 in Idlib and 1 in Lattakia (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 294: 7 points were shelled with warplanes, 2 points with cluster bombs, 122 points with mortars, 111 points with artillery and 51 points with missile shelling (LCCs).

Clashes: The Free Syrian Army clashed with the regime’s army at 150 points where they managed to block the regime forces’ attempt to storm Bustan neighborhood in Aleppo (with the defection of several personnel from the Police Academy). They also gained control of the Soldier’s Hotel in Khan Al-Assal and shelled Jarah Military Airport in Maskana in Aleppo. In Deir Ezzor the FSA surround the Political Security branch and dismantled several military machines and in Damascus Suburbs they blocked an attempt by regime’s army to storm Eastern Ghota, through Hteitet Al-Turkman road, and destroyed more than 15 military vehicles and 4 tanks. In Hama, they seized a lot of ammunition and a food unit on the agricultural road connecting between Soqailbiya and Tal Burhan. Also, they destroyed several military vehicles and captured several regime army personnel throughout Syria (LCCs).

Reports from local activists confirm that the son of the newly appointed Minister of Defense, Rustom Ghazali, one of the few Syrian officials accused in plotting the assassination of former Lebanese PM, Rafic Al-Hariri, has been kidnapped by rebels from his hometown in Khirbet al-Ghazali. This development led to increase in the intensity of clashes in the area, and throughout the Daraa Province. Authorities used loudspeakers threatening local of dire consequences should the Minister’s not be returned unharmed. Ghazali had only days ago replaced Mohammad Al-Shaar as Minister of Defense. Minister Al-Shaar had been injured in a rebel attack, received treatment in Beirut then returned to Syria where he disappeared from public view amidst increasing reports that he passed away.

News
Syria’s Assad rejects dialogue with “puppet” opposition Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced what he described as a peace plan on Sunday, calling for a reconciliation conference with “those who have not betrayed Syria”, to be followed by the formation of a new government and an amnesty. “The first stage of a political solution would require that regional powers stop funding and arming (the opposition), an end to terrorist operations and controlling the borders,” he said in a speech in central Damascus, his first public comments in months. “We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West,” he said.
Defiant Assad’s peace plan rejected by rebels In his first public speech in six months, Assad laid out terms for a peace plan that keeps himself in power, ignoring international demands to step down and pledging to continue the battle “as long as there is one terrorist left” in Syria.
Defiant Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’ he offered no new acknowledgment of the gains by the rebels fighting against him, the excesses of his government or the aspirations of the Syrian people. Mr. Assad also ruled out talks with the armed opposition and pointedly ignored its central demand that he step down, instead using much of a nearly hourlong speech to justify his harsh military crackdown… Mr. Assad’s speech was a disappointment for international mediators and many Syrians who say they believe that without a negotiated settlement, Syria’s conflict will descend into an even bloodier stage.
Syrian opposition dismiss Assad call for talks amid attack on ‘western puppets’ Rebels say Syrian president offered no meaningful concessions in his first public speech in seven months.

Morsy backs Syrian calls for al-Assad to face war crimes trial “The Syrian people through their revolution and through the movement will — when the bloodshed stops — move to a new stage where they will have an independent parliament and a government of their choosing,” Morsy, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in Cairo. “And then they will decide what they want to do to those who committed crimes against them. It is the Syrian people who decide.”
Israel warily watches shifts across its frontier with Syria Trenches lined with coils of razor wire have been dug along the Israeli side of the Golan frontier, and a new 15-foot-high steel fence is under construction, with plans to extend it the length of the boundary with Syria. Surveillance of the Syrian side, aided by cameras, also is being stepped up… Replacing a lower electronic warning fence, the imposing new barrier, encased in rolls of barbed wire, is intended to serve as a bulwark against infiltrators.

Special Reports
As Bashar Assad Shows His Defiance, Syria Nears Its Existential Cliff
While there’s a common perception in Western capitals that the regime is on its last legs, there are plenty of signs on the ground that it remains very much intact—and very dangerous. Assad’s security forces have been forced to relinquish control of many rural areas and have even ceded the impoverished peripheries of a number of Syrian cities, but it has escalated its attacks on areas under rebel control in recent months, deliberately imposing a heavier toll in humanitarian suffering. And rebels in many areas appear desperately short of funds and military resources, despite promises of expanded support from outside powers.

He wants to negotiate, but with whom, and over what?

By appearing so out-of-touch with reality, Assad has shown that he is not in control of his own regime. He, in fact, is the puppet. The question, therefore, is: who’s really running the show at this stage? And what do they want?

Assad’s words provide few clues, but the subtext to his speech, the body language and apparent nervousness in delivery, his clear concern for how his speech will be viewed by his supporters as denoted by his repeated assertions that he is not giving up the fight against the “terrorists,” his dismissal of the external opposition coupled with his readiness to negotiate with their backers… all these things point to the presence of a radical camp inside the regime that seems to have taken charge of the day-to-day management of the crackdown, keeping Assad as a necessary window dressing.

What does this radical camp want? At this stage, and judging by developments on the ground, the only possible interpretation is that they want to buy enough time to draw the borders of their coveted enclave, while exacting revenge against the Sunni population all over the country through continued recourse to scorched earth policy.

In short, our descent into hell continues.

Video Highlights

Shortly after the speech delivered by Assad, clashes took place in several neighborhoods in Damascus City http://youtu.be/UvUNATTlasY , http://youtu.be/la_qMCdIlRM

Clashes in Deir Ezzor City intensified http://youtu.be/wyi8VPOugSY , http://youtu.be/mPr0xxS2N5Y , http://youtu.be/S_GNs-OMBh0 , http://youtu.be/O5AtC3IY2tA

Intense clashes took place in the town of Basr Al-Harir, Daraa as well http://youtu.be/f7jfaou4plI , http://youtu.be/hbGDSh9zhFs , http://youtu.be/dAxaNYkyVIc , http://youtu.be/JYFZpf0JhB0 , http://youtu.be/uAsLA2aWE58 Rebels take control of a BMP http://youtu.be/Bo4KM2HmHuk

Intense clashes took place in several neighborhoods in Homs City as well http://youtu.be/XAinJ2fUE1o

Clashes took place around the Police Academy in Aleppo City as well http://youtu.be/yMI1JAmefyk
Leaked video documents the use of missile launchers in the pounding of restive cities by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/O-djiFPf_qs

But Assad’s fighter jets kept dropping barrel bombs on Kuweirus Airport where rebels are positioned http://youtu.be/TPFkWEVVpa0

Posted by Ammar Abdulhamid at 1:05 AM @
http://www.syrianrevolutiondigest.com/2013/01/the-finitiative.html?spref=fb

SL

I think the Assads tried hard for quite some time to establish themselves as patrons of the fine arts. First the library, then this opera house, thank God Syria will be spared from Asmas science city and Syria wont see that Kempinski take over the Khan Afsa Pasha.

Some say in Damascus that Bashar build the opera just to have some fun in front of his damascus home, someone who works in the opera told me that the Assads hardly miss any activity of the opera, a seat is always reserved for them and their entourage.

In the entrance there is an small exhibition of the who is who in the fine arts, of course whom the regime finds worthy to praise.( the price for that is usually a donation by the artist, and some statues or paintings of the eyedoc) Before the opera house was build, only a smaller theatre was well known( I forgot the name), its just in walking distance, and hosted in the good old days when Fairuz was still performing in Damascus her concerts.

The people of Homs reacting to President Bashar Al Assad’s speech!

دمشق:: وسط العاصمة اصوات اطلاق رصاص عنيفة جداً2013/1/6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-4KMdDehkM

sure sounds like assad has everything under control.

Annie 71,

FYI,

I could be ‘vulgar’ but only in proportion to a vulgarity usually initiated by others.

Not that I care if you read or not.

US, allies step up military backing for Syria’s sectarian insurgency – 7 January 2013

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/07/syri-j07.html

On Sunday, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad made his first public speech in several months. He focused his remarks on the sponsorship of the opposition by the Western powers and its domination by Islamist forces. Any “political solution” in Syria “would require that regional powers stop funding and arming [the opposition], an end to terrorist operations and controlling the borders,” he said. “We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West.”

He called for a “full national mobilisation” to fight against “terrorists who follow the ideology of Al Qaeda.”

The sectarian character of the opposition and the fact that it is sponsored by the US and Europe, in alliance with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, is Assad’s main source of internal support. Many who oppose his brutal regime—Sunnis as well as Alawites, Christians and other minorities—back him for fear of what will come next.

Two days before Assad’s speech, US troops began to arrive in Turkey to man Patriot missile defence batteries near the Syrian border. The dispatch of 27 personnel Friday to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base to survey the Patriot deployment is a first step towards launching an air campaign to establish no-fly zones, similar to that waged to depose Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland described the 27 troops as “a site survey team.” Over the next several days, the US will deploy personnel from an air defence battalion based in Oklahoma, according to the US European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, Germany. They will fly into Turkey on military aircraft, with additional equipment arriving by sea.

A full deployment of 400 US troops will follow, alongside troops from Germany and the Netherlands. German and Dutch Patriot missiles are being shipped to Turkey this week. The combined force of around 1,000 troops and six patriot missile batteries will be operational by the end of January. They will be under the overall control of NATO, but the missiles will be operated by their respective countries.

Two Dutch Patriot batteries will be transported on Monday to the port of Eemshaven from a military barracks in Vredepeel. Tomorrow, 30 Dutch and 20 German soldiers charged with preparing for the missiles’ arrival by ship, scheduled for January 22, will fly from Eindhoven to Turkey. The 270 Dutch troops who will operate the missiles will leave for Turkey on January 21. German’s defence ministry said that its Patriots would be shipped Tuesday from the port of Luebeck-Travemuende and would arrive at the Turkish port of Iskenderun January 21. German troops could number between 350 and 400.

Bound up with this deployment, Taftenaz airbase in northern Syria has been targeted for sustained attack by the Syrian opposition fighters, including a brigade of the Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate recently designated as terrorist by Washington. By seizing the helicopter airbase from government forces, they aim to shut down Syria’s defensive capabilities in the region while the missile batteries are being stationed.

Coinciding with this multinational deployment of troops and missiles, there have been repeated allegations from NATO, all denied, that Syria used “scud-type missiles” against its opponents last month. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen denounced the alleged use of these missiles as “an act of a desperate regime approaching collapse.” He said it underscored “the need for effective defence and protection of our ally Turkey.”

The CIA meanwhile claims that Syria has a 1,000-tonne stockpile of chemical weapons agents, including the nerve agent sarin and mustard gas, stored in 50 towns and cities.

Israel is making its own preparations for an escalation of the conflict, strengthening its military presence on Syria’s Golan Heights. Israel Radio reported that Israel’s armed forces will reinforce the 56-kilometre border fence between the two countries, adding anti-personnel trenches, quick response units and a new early-warning system. In November, Israel Defence Forces fired an anti-tank rocket into Syria after a mortar bomb accidentally landed in Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet Sunday the Syrian regime was “unstable.” He said that across the frontier, “the Syrian army has moved away, and in its place, global Jihad forces have moved in.”

On January 1, al-Quds al-Arabi reported that Israeli officials held talks in Jordan with Syrian opposition officials in advance of “a possible Israeli-US operation in Syria to protect the Golan Heights.” This report was taken up by DEBKAfile, a security think tank with close connections to Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. It wrote: “There was no further information about this operation. Goings-on on the Israeli and Jordanian borders with Syria are officially blacked out. But European intelligence sources reveal nightly border clashes between US, Jordanian, Israeli special forces and Syrian rebels, on the one hand, and Syrian special forces, on the other.”

The London-based Al-Hayat also reported Sunday that the United Nations is mulling its options regarding sending a peacekeeping force to Syria, gearing up to execute any decision made by the Security Council.

The preparations for intervention by the US, the European powers and Israel come amid innumerable reports of the opposition to President al-Assad being dominated by Sunni sectarian tendencies. The Financial Times last week cited Shaikh Adnan Arour, “a fierce and more radical Salafi”, as the “godfather of sorts for the revolution, dedicating his programme on a Saudi television channel to the uprising, and propagating a more puritanical form of Islam…. His influence is such that he was co-opted into the leadership of some of the military councils.”

Jabhat al-Nusra’s “emir” is Abu Julaybib, a Jordanian relative of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Al Qaeda in Iraq, who died in a US air strike in 2006. This weekend, the Assad regime was reported to have captured Mohamed al-Zawahiri, the brother of the new head of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Deraa, where he was meeting opposition activists. Deraa, near the Jordanian border, is a stronghold for Jabhat al-Nusra.

CBC’s Marie-Eve Bedard interviewed various fighters in Aleppo, including nominal Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander Colonel Abdul Jabbar Akaidi. But she noted Abu Mohammad, commander of the Kata ib-Essalam brigades, stating that “The FSA and the coalition is only ink on paper”, an “image created to present a united front for foreign governments.” Most of the brigade fighters are Islamists seeking to establish Sharia law through Jihad.

“Jabhat al-Nusra is made up of fighters from other Muslim countries, many of them veterans of other conflicts,” Bedard added. “The group has taken up residence in the very heart of Aleppo, in what used to be a nursing school.”

[…]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/07/syri-j07.html

Daily Telegraph: Assad speech is similar to last speech made by Qaddafi,

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/07/259118.html

But Mullah-stan said it welcomes the speech as an all encompassing solution, and encourages all parties to abide by it otherwise otherwise otherwise otherwise otherwise………..

Pope calls for end to Syria slaughter – Updated 49 minutes ago

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-07/pope-calls-for-end-to-syrian-conflict/4455888

Pope Benedict XVI has urged the international community to end to the “endless slaughter” in Syria before the entire country becomes a “a field of ruins.”

He made the appeal during a yearly “state of the world” address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican on Monday.

“I think first and foremost of Syria, torn apart by endless slaughter and the scene of dreadful suffering among its civilian population,” he said.

He called for an end to the conflict, which he said “will know no victors but only vanquished if it continues, leaving behind it nothing but a field of ruins”.

The Pope urged the diplomats from nearly 180 countries and world organisations to push their governments to do everything possible to face “this grave humanitarian situation”.

“Civil and political authorities before all others have a grave responsibility to work for peace,” he told the envoys gathered in the Sala Regia of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

“They are the first called to resolve the numerous conflicts causing bloodshed in our human family, beginning with that privileged region in God’s plan, the Middle East.”

The Pope spoke a day after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

Pope Benedict has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Syria.

He used his Christmas message to call for an end to the bloodshed in the country, saying its people have been “deeply wounded and divided by a conflict which does not spare even the defenceless and reaps innocent victims”.

[…]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-07/pope-calls-for-end-to-syrian-conflict/4455888

Syria’s air defense is key to Assad’s courage
07.01.2013
http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/07-01-2013/123392-syria_assad_missile_defense-0/

Recently, the amount of disinformation around Syria has significantly increased. The goal is to escalate tension and pressure of the atmosphere of fear in the government of Bashar al-Assad who must be forced to make some impulsive step. The position of the Russian leadership is criticized, but this is precisely what does not allow the West to topple Assad. Russia is also fulfilling its obligations under the military contracts.

The Syrian air defense has a little over 900 launchers of anti-aircraft missiles, of which the vast majority are C-75 and C-125 units. The Syrian sky is protected by 48-200M launchers with a range of up to 200 kilometers. During deployment they are protected by 60 launchers SAM “Wasp” grouped into 14 batteries. The defense also has 60 plants SAM “Wasp” and about 4 thousand pieces of artillery. The country has a North and South defense zones controlled from three command centers fully equipped with computers, and the armed forces have 60 thousand people, Military News reported. This arsenal is twice as powerful as Gaddafi’s.
…..
The newspaper wrote that the depth and complexity of the Syrian air defense meant that any western campaign in support of a no-fly zone or in direct air strikes would be costly, time-consuming and risky. Possible Russian military losses in such a campaign could lead to unpredictable geopolitical consequences. It turns out that the West is afraid of Russia’s possible involvement in the war. This is also a strong deterrent, and the West knows that Putin could respond adequately.

Reliable Syrian air defense in conjunction with military support from Moscow and the fragmented nature of the opposition and the global economic crisis explain why a Western intervention predicted by nearly all world’s analysts a year ago has not taken place. It seems that it will not take place, despite the provocation of some media, sponsored by the American military industrial complex.

After Bashar’s 9th defiant speech, what can the Western community do?
… More of the same.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/assad-offers-only-more-of-the-same-mukhabarat-brutality#ixzz2HIjqosRm

The world still blinks every time that Bashar Al Assad speaks, as if it has not learnt anything from 21 months of violence.

In his speech yesterday – his ninth since the uprising began – the dictator offered a plan that would include a lengthy, complicated process of gradual change and “truth and reconciliation”. That would, in theory, lead to a new coalition government and a new constitution.
…
The aim seemed to be threefold: to create the impression that the rebels refuse political settlements; to add to the world’s reluctance about arming the rebels; and to question the legitimacy of the National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people.
….
If the world wants to help Syrians, there is only one way: step up support for the rebels. The Assad speech was a sign of desperation. Recent moves, including the recognition of the opposition and the pledges of support, can work. More support for the rebels only increases the chances of a political settlement, which might even include safe passage for Al Assad. But a solution cannot come on his terms.

To be helpful, support for the rebels cannot simply prolong the fighting. The rebels need to be able to tip the balance. As the situation stands now, the regime may be able to fight for years, not just months.

…
The price that Syria pays may be too high. But that is what it takes to bring down the Baathist regime.

Mixed messages all the time..from Iran.

Morsi vaguely predicts that the Syrian people will win and will decide the punishment of those who committed crimes.
He seems to forget that in Egypt, it’s the army that warranted his taking of the power, not the people.

http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32461

“The Syrian people, through their revolution, and through the movement will, when the bloodshed stops, move to a new stage where they will have an independent parliament and the government of their choosing,” Mursi said, according to excerpts released by the network.

“And then they will decide what they want to do against those who committed crimes against them. It is the Syrian people who decide.”

Mursi spoke through a translator after being asked if he believed Assad, the president of Syria, should be tried by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court.

“This phase is the phase of the people. Similar to what the Egyptian people wanted, the Syrian people want it. And we support the Syrian people. And they are going to win and they have the will to win,” he said.

83. zoo
The Russian are trying to save the reputation of their arms industry after their airplanes were shot down like flies with an almost sling shot weapons,their mighty tanks were destroyed with small arms.
Where was this so called”Reliable Syrian air defense “when Israeli airplanes flew over Bashar’s bedroom? or when it went the furthest corner in Syria and destroyed Alkabir complex,
They want to claim credit to their useless weapons, for the west not intervening in Syria,while we all know this is not the reason. This article is a joke

Syrian #87

If you say so…. Then maybe you have an answer to why the West is so reluctant to create the long waited ‘no-fly zone’ begged by the Turks, repeatedly promised by France and that was so efficient in Libya?

ZOO#88
1- It is not worth it to them,there is no oil in Syria
2-Isreal did not give their OK. this is their back yard and have a say in it, the longer Bashar destroys Syria the better for them
3-Keeping Iran busy and weaken it more through the billions it has to send Bashar to keep fighting
4-They know that what is after Bashar,is not a guaranteed Israel friendly,like Hafiz and Bashar was with them

Syrian

So all the upheaval about the 60,000 death that must stop is just empty talk?
I guess it is. One wonders who is the cruelest and the more cynical: Bashar or the West?

“Despite the huffing and puffing”.
Syria: why Assad may yet claim victory

Perhaps it’s not Bashar al-Assad who is detached from reality but Obama and Hague. Syria’s dictator could yet claim victory
Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, Monday 7 January 2013 14.41 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/reality-syria-intervention-unlikely

Assad’s most effective weapon has been to convince interventionists that awful though he is, what might follow would almost certainly be worse’.

Reacting angrily to President Bashar al-Assad’s speech on Sunday calling for an end to the rebellion, the US state department said the Syrian leader was “detached from reality”. But much the same might be said of the US and of Assad’s other western and Arab foes, and with greater justification. After two years of bloody attrition, the unpalatable truth is Assad is still in power, shows no sign of heeding demands to quit and is far from beaten. The evolving reality is that Assad may yet see off his many enemies and claim victory in Syria’s civil war.

Explanations for this remarkable feat of survival lie not with Assad’s personal abilities, which are limited, nor with the durability of his domestic supporters, who are in the minority, nor with the president’s ruthlessness in prosecuting the military campaign. More potent has been his subtler achievement in convincing would-be western interventionists that awful though he is, what might follow him would almost certainly be worse. When leading Washington commentators such as David Ignatius start talking up a “truth and reconciliation” process, you kind of know the battle is lost.
….
But despite all the huffing and puffing in Washington (and London), decisive intervention is extremely unlikely. It is time the likes of Obama and William Hague admitted this reality and started dealing with what is, rather than what might have been.

ZOO
the West are hypocrites while Bashar is just a plain mad man

No vulgarity exceeds that of defending, and propagandizing for a murderous criminal such as athad the fool. All pales in front of such intentional assault on the seances and on decency. Those defending and barking on behalf of the regime here and elsewhere are the most obscene and vulgar humanity has to offer even when their words are coated with niceties.

Obscenity is not a nude picture or a bad word but it is a sick mind that sees no sanctity for the lives of people. This site has a few examples, and ALL are regime propagandists.

So in that sense I don’t see visitor as vulgar, and for sure, visitor does not and should not care for my opinion.

Bad news for the Takfiri apes comes knocking…

Syrian rebels alter plans as aid denied
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/01/05/Syrian-rebels-alter-plans-as-aid-denied/UPI-98971357415766/

DAMASCUS, Syria, Jan. 5 (UPI) — Syrian rebels have abandoned plans to try to overwhelm the forces of President Bashar Assad and will focus on a war of attrition, members of the opposition say.

The strategy changed after the rebel coalition failed to receive increased military aid, even after getting diplomatic recognition, The Guardian reported Saturday.

Supplies are drying up as Western governments resist arming the rebels, says a Syrian businessman who has helped fund the opposition. Arab countries that have provided equipment are sending less each week.

Consequently, the businessman said, rebel forces no longer see Assad being defeated in a grand sweep through the country. Rather, they are planning their battles one at a time, besieging military bases and capturing weapons.

In the past two months, Western nations including the United States have declared the rebel coalition “the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” but have pinned contributions to proof the coalition controls rebel forces and that none of the aid will go to Islamist groups.

Many Syrians have declined to openly support the rebels out of uncertainty over who might win, The New York Times reported.

In some cases, Assad’s crackdown has made protest much riskier. However, there’s also a suspicion the rebellion is spawning warlords and creating cycles of revenge that could be difficult to eliminate, the newspaper said.

The world’s leaders could stand to take a lesson from Assad:

“Syria has always been, and will remain, a free and sovereign country that won’t accept submission and tutelage. That is why it has been a nuisance for the West, so they sought to take advantage of internal events to drive Syria out of the political equation in the region to get rid of this irksome problem and to strike at the culture of resistance and turn us into subordinates. But the West is not the entire international community, as there are world countries, namely Russia, China and the BRICS countries, and many other countries which won’t agree to meddling in the internal affairs of countries and destabilizing the region based on their principles, interests and care for the people’s freedom in determining their destiny. To those countries I extend my thanks, namely to Russia, China and Iran, and to all those who stood by the Syrian people to determine their own destiny.” – President Assad in his history-making speech of January 6 2013
http://www.sana-syria.com/eng/21/2013/01/06/460536.htm

LOL!

The tolerated ‘opposition’ told Assad where to go:

AJE Blog 30 minutes ago:

“We will not take part in a national dialogue before violence stops,” the head of the opposition group, Hassan Abdel Azim, told a news conference in Damascus, setting the first of several conditions for talks with the regime.

He also demanded that any dialogue be preceded by the release of prisoners, a guarantee to ensure humanitarian aid is delivered to areas hit by the violence and the publication of a statement on the fate of missing Syrians.

“Any negotiation – not just a national dialogue – must be held under the aegis of the UN-Arab League envoy,” he said.

“There won’t be direct negotiations or dialogue with the regime,” he stressed.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syria/tolerated-syrian-opposition-rejects-talks-assad

EDL Leader Lennon Jailed For Passport Offence

Monday 07 January 2013

The leader of the English Defence League has been jailed for 10 months for using someone else’s passport to get into the United States.

[…]

Lennon used a passport in the name of Andrew McMaster to board a Virgin Atlantic Flight from Heathrow to New York, but was caught out after his fingerprints were taken by customs officials.

The court heard that Lennon, who had previously been refused entry to the US, used his friend’s passport to travel to the country in September.

[…]

But when he arrived at New York’s JFK Airport, customs officials who took his fingerprints realised he was not Mr McMaster.

Lennon was asked to attend a second interview but left the airport, entering the US illegally.

Read more:

http://news.sky.com/story/1034468/edl-leader-lennon-jailed-for-passport-offence

#94 Syrian

So? where does it take Syria? to hell?

Hassan Abdel Azim: “We will not take part in a national dialogue before violence stops,”

Then in 1 year or 2 maybe ….

World divided over Syrian President’s peace plan
DUBAI, January 7, 2013

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world-divided-over-syrian-presidents-peace-plan/article4283841.ece

…
In its response to the presidential address, the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged both sides in the conflict to “follow the objectives and principles set forth in the Action Group Geneva Communiqué and establish an inclusive transitional governing body to realise a political transition in the country”.

Conceived on June 30 last year, the Geneva plan calls for the formation of a transitional government in Syria, drawn from the government and the opposition, without seeking Mr. Assad’s exit.

While there has so far not been an official Russian response to the presidential address, the Voice of Russia radio quoted Boris Dolgov from the Institute of Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences as saying that the President’s speech was a significant event not only for Russia but the entire region. He concurred with Mr. Assad’s perception that the external support to the opposition was the main cause of instability in the region.

Analysts point out that the President’s speech comes at a point of inflection in the Syrian crisis. In the United States, a major change of personnel is taking place in the State Department, CIA and the Pentagon, which might be a precursor to a policy shift on Syria.

Later in January, Lakhdar Brahimi is hosting a trilateral meeting with senior Russian and U.S. officials, amid anticipation that a new U.S.-Russia plan on resolving the Syrian crisis is in the works.

Nevertheless, Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman for the State Department, did not signal on Sunday any change in Washington’s stance towards Syria. She described Mr. Assad’s speech as “yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power, and [which] does nothing to advance the Syrian people’s goal of a political transition”.

I understand there is snow in (at least) Homs due to an approaching storm.

This will further isolate already isolated and besieged regime bases (troops).

Those bases which are too dangerous to supply or reinforce by road may also become difficult to reach by air during such weather. (?)

I hope the syrian people and refugees are provided with what they need during the winter.

Ibrahimi should work harder…

Syria: Ban disappointed that President’s speech ‘does not contribute’ to ending suffering

7 January 2013 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was disappointed that a speech made by Syria’s President Bashar al Assad on Sunday “does not contribute to a solution that could end the terrible suffering of the Syrian people,” the UN chief’s spokesperson said today.

…

God, Syria, Bashar, enough!

I wonder how God feels about being lumped in there with a turd like Bashar…

Has Ibrahimi made any comment in regard to Batta’s speech?

In the eventuality that Bashar goes, there is no reason why the armed rebels will accept that some expats supported by the USA that they hate will take over the country when they are the ones who died fighting. Moreover the West will not help the rebels win militarily, as they only want a political solution.

This is why it is premature to ask Bashar to step down unless these events take place:

– The Coalition gets a more credible leadership than Al Khatib and Zouhair Attasi and proves its presence and ‘legitimacy’ not only in FOS meetings but physically in Syria.

– The Coalition must fulfill their plans to create “a military council” that would overlook the armed rebels.

– The Coalition must force the ‘good’ armed rebels to dissociate themselves totally from the Al Nusra and islamists rebels

These are much more difficult and longer task that what has been done until now .
This is why I fully agree with J.L that, until there is a milirary coup, Bashar al Assad may stay in power at least until 2014.

Zoo,

Her name is Souhair. Do you also have problem pronouncing the letter S or is it that you like to have a problem similar to Batta’s. just curious.

president assad’s follow up political comment:

“they came, they saw, they died, many fled beaten like dogs.”

“we accept the surrender of the jewish west. we will not humiliate you as you deserve.”

“…but”

“your leaders will be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace.”

“hanging ropes will be woven from rat hairs.”

“your worthless, brainwashed ‘citizens’ will need to work hard to pay for the crimes of your jewish leaders and their puppets.”

110. SHLOMO

“your jewish leaders and their puppets”

You got Jews on the brain, Shloie. I’m glad I’m not your girlfriend. I’d have to listen to you going on and on all during orgasm. It would totally ruin the mood…

Mr. Assad and the Syrian people must face reality. The reality that whatever government they deserve is best determined by what Israel and its supporters in the west and the ruling Saudi Arabian king and Princesses approve.

In the last 2 plus years close to 78,000 Syrians have been killed. Is it not valid to pose the question to the non Syrians in the West and in the Gulf about their guilt in the destruction of life and property of others? As well as consider doing unto them what is being done to the Syrians?

All Syrians rejoiced at hearing these words:

“At the beginning they wanted it a fake revolution but the Syrian people rebelled against them; then they tried to impose it secretly through money, the media and arms; and when they failed, they moved to the second phase through dropping the masks of a “peaceful revolution” and unveiled the cover of the weapons they were using secretly to use them openly, starting their attempts to occupy certain cities in order to attack other cities. Their brutality didn’t intimidate our people, thanks to their awareness and steadfastness; so our people rejected them and unveiled their lies. Therefore they decided to take revenge on the people through spreading terrorism indiscriminately everywhere.

“They call it a revolution, but in fact it has nothing to do with revolutions. A revolution needs thinkers. A revolution is built on thought. Where are their thinkers? A revolution needs leaders. Who is its leader? Revolutions are built on science and thought not on ignorance, on pushing the country ahead not taking it centuries back, on spreading light not cutting power lines. A revolution is usually done by the people not by importing foreigners to rebel against the people. A revolution is in the interest of people not against the interests of people. Is this a revolution? Are those revolutionaries? They are a bunch of criminals.

“Takfiris were working at the back rows through bombings and mass killing, leaving the armed gangs at the front line, but the unity of the Syrian people and army forced them to move to fighting at the front lines where they led the rudder of a ship of blood, killing and mutilation. Because takfiri thought is alien to our country, they had to import it from abroad, whether through terrorists or thought. Thus, takfiris, terrorists, al-Qaeda members calling themselves Jihadis streamed from everywhere to command the combat operations on the ground. The gunmen, having failed, retreated to the backlines as aides in acts of kidnapping, pillaging and sabotage, as servants, and at best, guides who spy on their fellow citizens to serve criminals takfiris who only speak the language of slaughtering and mangling.” – President Assad
http://www.sana-syria.com/eng/21/2013/01/07/460536.htm

Tara

You’re right, my fault.. Zouhair is a man’s name.

Watershed Speech at the Opera, Tipping Point or Turning Point?
Franklin Lamb
http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=79346&cid=41&fromval=1&frid=41&seccatid=101&s1=0

Damascus– Easy walking distance from this observer’s hotel near the city center, the Damascus Opera House, the site of yesterday’s Presidential address, was inaugurated in May of 2004 by the President and his wife, completing a project of his late father, Hafez, who actually planned the opera house in detail, but which had been put on hold since the late 1970’s. Located off Umayyad Square, the multipurpose culture center complex, presented its most recent opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s, The Marriage of Figaro, just months before the current crisis erupted.

The nearly 1,400 seating capacity Opera Theater was packed for yesterday’s presidential address, and as in the final scene of Mozart’s Opera, the conclusion of Bashar Assad’s performance was followed by, as Mozart wrote, “a night-long celebration” among many of his supporters here in Damascus.

Basher Assad’s glory, as he tried to leave the stage last night and was swarmed by scores of admirers, may not have been that of Caesar’s, during the Gallic wars as the latter also portrayed a domestic crisis and challenge as a defensive struggle to save “Rome”. And granted, it is unlikely that Syria’s president will appear to his critics as posh as John Kennedy at Vienna’s Opera House.

But the man connected with his audience (s) during his watershed speech.

He excelled in delivery, content and, most critically, stating and advocating what he believes is his countryman’s case. While welcoming foreign advice on how to end the current crisis, he insisted that the Syrian people throughout their history of resistance to occupation and hegemony have rejected the orders from certain governments he referred to, in the current crisis, as the “masters of the puppets” who are every day causing death, destruction and deprivations across the Syrian Arab Republic.

Admittedly sleep deprived, this observer, as he listened to Bashar Assad’s address was reminded of a Macbeth or Brutus soliloquy. I could not help but transpose in my mind Brutus’ plea in Act 3, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

“Who is here so rude or unpatriotic that would not be a Syrian? Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak–for him I have not intentionally or unjustly wronged. I pause for a reply.”

Following his presidential address to the nation, one local journalist, who is sometimes critical of the regime, elaborated–in answer to my question about Assad’s apparent enduring popularity during this tragic period for people of Syria:

“It’s true. And it’s partly due to the fact that he is modest, even humble–and well-educated in contrast to some regional monarchs who are essentially illiterate and uninterested in the world outside their fiefdoms palaces.” She continued, “Before the crisis it was not unusual to spot him, without a security convoy, driving himself around downtown, his car full of kids- doing errands or taking them out to eat-sometimes collecting them from school. You saw his almost boyish charm yesterday as he entered the hall and made his way down the aisle to the podium as he greeted members of the audience. As he departed he did not appear in a hurry as he shook hands. Bashar Assad obviously enjoys being among people and is not at all a sullen remote type personality as some critics wrongly portray him.”

Following the speech, when the lovely chamber maid who daily spruces up my hotel room dropped by in early evening to do something, I was reading and watching the news. They showed a clip of the president delivering his noontime speech. She lite up when she saw Bashar, spontaneously walked across the room, wrapped her arms around the TV set and hugged it while kissing the screen. I noticed that the lady’s hands were wet and became fearful that the dear woman might get electrocuted!

One well known politically connected Sheik in Damascus offered his view last night to this observer that Assad’s message was to the Syrian people and to his country’s foreign friends and to those who are neutral–and not to his governments enemies. He also suggested that the President will deliver two more speeches in the near future, the next one perhaps having a “FDR fireside chat” format. The Sunni Sheik referred to yesterday’s speech as the first of three “victory” speeches he expected to be delivered.

He also spoke about the UAE and Saudi Arabia in relation to what was happening in Syria and the fact that they are experiencing challenges of their own. In the case of the Saudi Kingdom, and against the backdrop of increased Iran-Saudi consultations regarding Syria, the ill health of King Abdullah and the evident succession power struggle which has intensified recently, with some of the royal family potentates reportedly being strongly opposed to the current campaign to undermine the Assad regime. The Syrian government, despite its detractors, is seen by many in the Gulf countries as being pedigree Arab nationalists with a history of mutual respect for other countries.

The Sheik also sees signs of the Obama administration backing off from its covert war against Syria partly due to the fractured and often coherent message coming from various spokesman of the misnomered “coalition.”

Mr. Assad, in what historians and Middle East analysts may well dub an historic speech, offered a new plan to his countrymen, friends and foes alike, and to the international community to immediately end the crisis

It includes, in sequential order:
• foreign countries to stop financing the rebels;
• Syria’s government putting down its arms and declaring an amnesty;
• a national conference and dialogue;
• the drafting of a constitution approved by referendum;
• a coalition government, presumably until the holding of elections scheduled for 2014.

One Congressional staffer on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee emailed late today that the Obama administration may well be willing to accept Bashar Assad’s “Damascus Opera House” formula given the fast changing geopolitical reality the region and the military stalemate on the ground in Syria. Both facts suggesting that there is no realistic alternative to the current elected government or that there is much of a realistic prospect that the regime will throw in the towel or collapse anytime soon.

The Congressional staffer, who works on US-Middle East issues, also believes that the incoming Secretary of State, John Kerrey and the likely new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who will face a tough Senate confirmation fight, but will likely survive it, would go along.

In contract to President Assad’s speech this morning, one of the leaders of the so-called opposition, George Sabra, did not appear capable of offering much to aid the process of ending the current crisis in Syria.

Said Mr. Sabra, “No one could possibly think about dialogue or working with this regime in any way. It is not a possibility. It is out of the question.”

This may not be the evolving international view.

president bashar al assad will win the presidential election with at least 75% of the people’s votes. i change to this from 68%.

he is the president and the leader. something america hasnt had for many decades.

assad, castro, chavez, putin, all place their people, country, culture, above servitude to greed, corruption, and 3rd rate, tin horn mussolinis.

To deter extremists in Syria, Obama must heed lessons of Kosovo intervention ( “three months bombing”?)

As President Obama watches Islamic extremists gain power in the chaos of the Syrian uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime, he should consider the precedent of the US intervention in Kosovo – where extremists have been kept at bay and democracy is growing.

By Andrew Burt / January 7, 2013
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2013/0107/To-deter-extremists-in-Syria-Obama-must-heed-lessons-of-Kosovo-intervention/%28page%29/2

….
So how did Kosovo resist these extremists? The answer, according to Selimi, is American support – in particular, increased US cooperation with Kosovo’s rebels, the Kosovo Liberation Army. After NATO intervention, spurred by the refugee crisis as Kosovar Albanians fled Milosevic, the US reached out to support opposition groups. Some of those groups had previously been labeled as terrorists, but this official US support helped empower moderate elements within them and incentivize a progressive agenda.
…
“Since the Kosovo Liberation Army, the primary base for guerilla resistance, was aligned to the western agenda,” explains Selimi, “there was never an ability for extremists to obtain the type of belief and support of the population.”
The FSA is aligned with a religious non-western agenda

Second, the US military intervention in the region itself played a major role in sidelining extremists. “The US was seen as the great ally of Kosovars and Albanians, so anybody who would come to Kosovo trying to spread anti-Americanism would have been shunned away,” says Selimi.
The Syrians armed rebels are anti-american

Had the US not intervened in Kosovo, however, the outcome would likely have been far worse. According to Selimi, “A lot of extremist groups here would have been able to gain a much stronger foothold banking on people’s frustration with a lack of response by the West and US.”
That’s may well happen
…
But the similarities between the two conflicts remain, especially when it comes to the dangers that a population, worn down by conflict and civil strife in the face of an oppressive regime, presents as an allure for extremist groups. Indeed, the rising influence of extremists in Syria is already topping the Obama administration’s agenda as a cause for deep concern.

And if the last decade teaches us anything, it is that these concerns are justified: Islamic extremists will use internal strife anywhere in the world to bolster their war against the West, from Pakistan to Yemen and Mali.

And so as Mr. Obama watches extremists gain power in Syria, with some groups drawing support from Al Qaeda itself, he would be wise to consider the precedent of the Kosovo intervention. If a three-month bombing campaign could help defeat the Assad regime, deter Islamic extremists, and give the Syrian opposition a solid shot at democratic governance, the effort would be well worth the cost.

Zoo,

Thank you for your decency.

#115 Revenire

Thanks, that’s an uplifting article.
I am sure many Syrians feel proud of being Syrian and to have a president who speak out about what they feel and who is able to convey messages calmly and without demagogic hysteria.
Some neighbors should learn from that speech.

I can’t help thinking about Erdogan the Magnificent and his silent puppet Al Khatib hurling his malediction to Syrian Arab refugees in the turkish language…
That was the real “opera comique” performance..

Why do you use (peasants) instead of (farmers)?

This is so rude word to use, you all should bow and pay full respects to the divine lineage.

“Assad has no real plan to end Syria’s ‘terrible suffering,’ says UN chief”

Do the UN and West have one?

there is a growing sense in western press that Syria is heading in The wrong direction and that the new revolutionary forces may be worse than Assad for the West and Israel even with the regime’s close ties to Iran.
The Guardian had a piece on the topic, the article mentioned Dr Landis’ latest comment about Assad staying till 2014:

“Series: Simon Tisdall’s world briefing
Syria: why Assad may yet claim victory
Perhaps it’s not Bashar al-Assad who is detached from reality but Obama and Hague. Intervention looks extremely unlikely”

(as the conflict takes a more personal nature, Assad may be now a bigger target for politicians and intelligence agencies who feel that their pride is hurt,however, it may be cheaper and less risky to keep the guy as a lame duck ruling over a destroyed country for few more month or a year (or a little longer) than igniting another wave of blood shed and revenge if Assad is personally targeted, as for justice getting served, I say hang on to your dreams,this is the Middle East, people worship revenge, justice is a fancy western invention, Syrians will discover that they destroyed their country for nothing, the fact that my predictions are coming true does not make me feel any better, a lot of older people said the same and were ridiculed by hot heads from both sides, enjoy the ruins)

Basel,

It is just an expression of contempt. Tried to find a word that convey my contemptuous feelings towards those hate-filled people but couldn’t . Any suggestions?

Of course, no offense to real peasants.

Tara

Don’t mention it. When it is proven that I am wrong, I have no problem admitting it.

Even if someone hates Assad they’ve been forced to give him credit for that speech. It was a fantastic analysis of events and a call to arms.

On another note:
بيان من لجان مخيم اليرموك
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/227714_515503281804479_465050213_n.jpg

“It us just an expression of contempt. Tried to find a word that convey my contemptuous feelings towards those hate-filled people but couldn’t . Any suggestions?”

Just use farmers.

Shaykh Husayni Refutes “Islamic Sham”
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/shaykh-husayni-refutes-islamic-sham/

Habibi revenire

1- What’s the significance of Yarmouk camp?
2- Why his highness our president has mentioned the Palestinians in his speech out of all other minorities?

Ghufran

Bashar’s speech has sent a real shockwave to the opposition and has debalanced them even further.

Now, they must work harder to prove that the armed rebels are not ‘terrorists’ and that they are credible enough to be an alternative to a regime that is still cohesive and whose support in the population is not decreasing, quite the contrary.

If they count on the military, the rebels are worn out with diminishing funds and weapons and they have no chance to succeed significantly alone in front of a strong and united army

If they count on foreign intervention, France lost interest in a costly war with dubious result. The USA has enough wars on its hands.

If they count on a political breakthrough, the coalition painfullly got a tepid ‘legitimacy’ stamp in front of foreign countries and expats but have still failed to put a foot inside Syria and get the support of minorities and the undecided.

Overall, the opposition is on a credibility declining slope while the Syrian government, after a difficult time has recovered more defiant and more assured than before.

As Simon Tisdall says it: “Maybe it is US and the Western countries who are detached from the reality”

Prospects for 2013: Jonathan Steele

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/blog_comments/prospects_for_2013_jonathan_steele

Two civil wars are likely to dominate 2013, both of them fuelled by the West and both causing massive casualties.

In Syria Britain, the US and their allies spent 2012 continually resisting efforts by the UN’s two mediators, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi, to promote a ceasefire and a realistic political solution. Instead, they took sides by giving diplomatic and logistical support to Syria’s rebel forces and made Bashar al Assad’s resignation as president the precondition for the start of any talks between the Syrian government and the opposition.
British special forces are working closely with the rebels at their bases in Turkey as well as inside Syria and now, as 2013 begins, Britain is pushing to lift EU restrictions on arms supplies to the rebels even though it knows this is a recipe for extending the civil war and condemning more and more civilians to death.
Instead of recognising that neither side can win a military victory and that negotiations and compromise are the best way forward, the West is backing the conservative Gulf monarchies’ anti-Syrian strategy of military intervention.
Recent opinion polls show a majority of British people oppose arming the Syrian rebels.
It will need a surge in public protest to block William Hague’s plans.

Syrians wake up and remember where you belong

“سوريا يا حبيبتي
أعدت لي كرامتي أعدت لي هويتي
سوريا يا حبيبتي
أعدت لي كرامتي أعدت لي هويتي

بالحرب والكفاح وشعلة الجراح
تنير درب ثورتي
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي

قنالنا جولاننا سماؤنا و أرضنا
تفديهم دماؤنا تحميهم أبطالنا
وبعثنا يسير لمجده الكبير
مبشراً بعودتي ورافعاً كرامتي مجدداً هويتي

بالحرب والكفاح وشعلة الجراح
تنير درب ثورتي
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي

الآن الآن الآن الآن

الآن اني عربي
يحق لي اسم أبي ومن أبي ومن أبي ومن أبي

رصاص بندقية مصنع الحرية للأمة الأبية
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي

سوريا يا درب كل ثائر
يا قلعة الأحرار والحرائر

صمودك العظيم في البشائر
تزف للآمال والضمائر

أعدت لي كرامتي أعدت لي حريتي أعدت لي هويتي

بالحرب والكفاح وشعلة الجراح
تنير درب ثورتي
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي

لم ينتهي المشوار يا عروية
حتى تعود أرضنا السليبة
ففي الخيام طفلة المصيبة
تنادي يا سورية الحبيبة

أعيدي لي كرامتي أعيدي لي حريتي أعيدي لي هويتي

بالحرب والكفاح وشعلة الجراح
تنير درب ثورتي
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي

سوريا يا حبيبتي
أعدت لي كرامتي أعدت لي هويتي
سوريا يا حبيبتي
أعدت لي كرامتي أعدت لي هويتي

بالحرب والكفاح وشعلة الجراح
تنير درب ثورتي
يا يا يا يا حبيبتي”

“كريماً لشهداء الجيش السوري الأبطال في حرب تشرين التحريرية – غناء نجاح سلامة ومحمد سلمان وتأليفه وتلحينه”

#121

the u.s. and u.n. have plans to create misery.

this is what savages do.

Shaykh Borhani: Victory is Delayed because we Delayed our Repentence
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/shaykh-borhani-victory-is-delayed-because-we-delayed-our-repentence/

“Shaykh Borhani: Victory is Delayed because we Delayed our Repentence”

heheheheheh
hahahahahah
hohohohohoho
tsk tsk tsk
erererereer

OMG!!!

Don’t forget to pray before Fajir prayer as well

Joshua Landis has by far the best prediction record of anyone here, and offers the most sobering perspective in his conclusion:

But in the end, the numbers will be decisive. The regime does not have an infinite supply of supporters who can fight. The rebels probably do. But what will Syria look like when it is over? The thought is staggering.

This is hard to get one’s head around if (for many of us here) bias or hopes can get in the way of accurately reading reality.

An odd note and an open question; in the story from AJE cited above:

Syria’s tolerated opposition has rejected an offer to enter into talks with the government of President Bashar al-Assad to find a solution to end the 21-month conflict.

The National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria (NCB) issued its verdict on Monday even as Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi said his cabinet would meet soon to draw up a mechanism for the peace roadmap announced by Assad.

[ . . . ]

“We will not take part in a national dialogue before violence stops,” the head of the opposition group, Hassan Abdel Azim, told a news conference in Damascus

Before I check the NCB site for official documentation, my note is ‘what happened to Haytham Mannah’? If you recall the weird NCB contretemps from Cairo two weeks ago when an internal squabble was denied by Mannah (in a typically long-winded dispatch) — that Mannah had lost the confidence of the group and was being pushed out — the AJE report suggests Azim is now the head, and as of this moment, nada from Mannah.

Could be that AJE was sloppy, and microphones could not be found in Paris for the real head of the NCB. Thoughts, anybody?

Add to that mix the Al-Akhbar story pre-speech that raised the notion of Haytham as ‘unity’ government Prime Minister …

_____________

The open question is for the Syria experts:

What makes an expatriate? I mean, since Kilo faces arrest on his return (because he left Syria illegally), is he now an “expat”? Similarly, if one left Syria because of a tip-off that an arrest was imminent, is he or she an “expat”?

Further context: Assad carefully (if inelegantly in translation to English) noted that the ‘loyalist opposition’ and ‘enemy opposition’ do not map to ‘inside’/’outside’ (as he said, the inside opposition contains traitors and the ‘outside’ contains loyal opposition), it is unclear who is on his shortlist of acceptable interlocutors.

In any case, it seems clear he will not enter ‘dialogue’ until his first condition is met anyhow (end to foreign support by terror-media, money, arms, training and so on).

Another way to look at the question: since Al-Khatib (not named by the President, of course) is an outside opposition puppet, by Assad’s reckoning, when did he become ‘outside’? — when he fled before arrest? (this is kind of similar to the instant transformation of a defected/deserted soldier into a ‘terrorist’ criminal the moment he abandoned his duties).

Perhaps someone with either impeccable sources in the SAA (like REVENIRE) or a direct line to Assad’s brain (like ZOO) could attempt to answer this question. ‘Terrorist friends’ like everyone here except ANN, ZOO and, um, CITIZEN, of course can have no opinion worth considering.

Oh, and a PS to REVENIRE: Me, my Objectivist cult, Miss Marple and the Nuremberg tribunal will be delivering a report on you later today. If the initial data-mining bear fruit, if I am an Objectivist cult member (rather than a harsh and persistent critic of Objectivism since 2005, banned at all but one forum), then that makes you a former Las Vegas Show Queen (instead of a part-time janitor at the shuttered Syrian consulate in Vancouver). We are considering @SyrianCommando’s notes on me, of course, that I am an attache to the Press Office at the Israeli embassy in Ottawa. He has yet to provide the documentation, but I am sure he can dig it up. It is almost like he is in Canada himself, though we know he lives in Perth, and speaks with a lovely Ocker twang.

Puzzles.

___________

— and a PPS for ZOO: thank you for the breaking news on the 360 million viewers of DonkeyKing’s performance before his employees. Here is the full quote from the Facebook link you forgot to provide:

OVER 360 MILLION VIEWERS FOR PRESIDENT’S SPEECH !! .

The Channel “NBN reported that there were more than 360 Million Viewers” for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s speech, according to the US Census Centre … – M.D

HNN

http://youtu.be/Qkq1-fHLdog

Inside Syria – What does 2013 have in store for Syria?

Sorry Visitor but I am allergic to vulgarity although you do not indulge in that kind of language every time.

Good guide to the Syrian opposition movements by the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15798218

It’s got that stunning picture of an ocean-sized opposition rally in July 2011. (Anyone remember where this was taken?)

A powerful reminder of that period – before the air strikes started.

Look at it and see why the regime panicked.

هذه صورة إبني البالغ من العمر سنة وشهرين العراقي المولود في سورية.. وبهذه الطريقة تابع خطاب السيد الرئيس بشار حافظ الأسد حيث قام بتقبيل التلفاز..
كل الحب لسورية وقائدها وشعبها وترابها الطاهرة..
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151427722228854&set=a.10150134007013854.334893.22233463853&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

As long as Khatib or any of these so-called legitimate representative of the Syrian people do not dare get closer to the soil of Syria than a border or a refugee camp in Turkey under the umbrella of Erdogan the Magnificent, they don’t count, they are not real, they are just a name among many names that flowed in the news supposedly to ‘save’ Syria and then disappeared in Bakkourland: Manaf Tlass, Ryad Al Asaad, Hijab, Ghaliun etc.. In the meantime Bashar is Bashar, he is in Syria, his discourse is the same, he does not beg for a foreign powers help, he is proud and he is real.

Al Khatib is a good example. In Syria he was known to be a preacher in a mosque, now he is perceived as a expat not because he left but because he lost so much touch with the Syrians that he was not able to utter a word when he was in front of them in Turkey…

The opposition is pathetic , there is no other word to describe them and they are a shame to the intelligence of Syrians revolutionaries who have put their hopes in them, to realize after 21 months that they were worse than Bashar’s worst elements in his regime.

Shaykh Kharsa: Until When, Shaykh Buti? http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/shaykh-kharsa-until-when-shaykh-buti/

WSS you make Landis sound like the best Miss Cleo of the bunch. Well, that is one opinion and during war many are reading tea leaves and entrails. WSS you are adept enough at sitting and entering terms into Google – I am sure you can find all the predictions of Assad’s demise and put them in some sort of coherent presentation for us.

This is your hobby Bill and that’s okay. Every former punk rocker still alive tries to grow up. Some make it, other don’t. Drugs take their toll. Go back to doing morning drag stunts or whatever those are – but add something entertaining to them – maybe a beheading from your terrorist pals like Amal. You’re a web addict in Vancouver. You’ve adopted the cause of terrorism. Okay. Nice.

Rand? Who would waste their time?

Commando? Who cares? Don’t know him – “seen” his tweets and he appears confused.

I’m not.

Please stop trying for my attention. Tweet about people you believe are crazy. Let me spin my wheels.

We can meet in a year and see who has won: Assad or the terrorists. My money is on Assad. If you have any money and care to wager let me know. No small bets.

first response from opposition party inside Syria:
رفضت هيئة التنسيق الوطنية لقوى التغيير الديمقراطي في سوريا مبادرة الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد التي أعلنها في خطابه الأخير، معتبرةً أن المبادرة غير واقعية وغير عملية.
وأوضحت الهيئة في مؤتمر صحفي “أن خطاب الأسد وما حمله من قراءات ومن رؤية أو مبادرة لإنهاء الثورة الشعبية جاء ليقطع الطريق على ما حمله الموفد الاممي الى سوريا الأخضر الابراهيمي من مبادرة لحل سلمي يجري العمل على تحقيقها، وعلى مساعيه لتأمين توافق دولي أمريكي روسي لضمان نجاح هذا الحل المؤسس على بيان جنيف”.
واعتبرت الهيئة “أن مبادرة الأسد أو رؤيته للحل وإن كانت تشكل بادرة أولى لطرح حل سياسي من قبل النظام السوري إلا أنها مبادرة غير واقعية ولا عملية”
what Assad basically said is that every rebel is a terrorist and that any political change has to be done under the regime’s supervision, he also ignored calls for his resignation, gradual departure or even a declaration that he will not run in 2014.
Assad speech was his best since March,2011 but it confirms many people’s suspicion that the road ahead will be long and bloody.

ZOO shouldn’t puff out his chest in pride at the numbers viewing Assad’s latest TV appearance.

There is widespread morbid interest in a monster, with his reputation similar to infamous brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin at the time.

Plus many millions of normal, decent people around the world who watch the news are anxious to see the horrific Syrian situation “fixed” and view him as the source and perpetrator of the ugly problem. They would have been hoping to see him announce he was leaving like Mubarak did.

When they saw him they would have been repulsed and incredulous that such a figure could have a “leadership” position. He is a very freaky looking creature, like some evil science fiction creation.

The beheviour of the in-house audience would also seem freakish and ridiculous.

If I were ZOO I would have preferred him to remain unseen.

Let me tell you something about war: Syria is fighting for Syria. The SAA soldiers fight to protect their nation, their families, their children, their way of life – everything. Their enemies fight for nothing more than crime, murder and death. They can’t win. They don’t even have a leader. Some ape-like expat criminal puppet can’t inspire men to die – that is why we find drugs with the terrorists. They need drugs to face death. All a Syrian soldier has to do is look at a picture of Assad – not as a cult figure but as the symbol of Syria, it’s president – and he has the strength needed to destroy the enemy.

There should be NO NEGOTIATION with anyone with a gun. Kill them all.

People who consider themselves experts can make predictions, and forecasts, based on this or that and that’s nice but doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to winning – or losing – the war.

What matters is national will and in two years no one has succeeded in breaking Syria’s will and no one ever will.

Syria: why Assad may yet claim victory
Perhaps it’s not Bashar al-Assad who is detached from reality but Obama and Hague. Intervention looks extremely unlikely
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/07/reality-syria-intervention-unlikely?CMP=twt_gu

Reacting angrily to President Bashar al-Assad’s speech on Sunday calling for an end to the rebellion, the US state department said the Syrian leader was “detached from reality”. But much the same might be said of the US and of Assad’s other western and Arab foes, and with greater justification. After two years of bloody attrition, the unpalatable truth is Assad is still in power, shows no sign of heeding demands to quit and is far from beaten. The evolving reality is that Assad may yet see off his many enemies and claim victory in Syria’s civil war.

Explanations for this remarkable feat of survival lie not with Assad’s personal abilities, which are limited, nor with the durability of his domestic supporters, who are in the minority, nor with the president’s ruthlessness in prosecuting the military campaign. More potent has been his subtler achievement in convincing would-be western interventionists that awful though he is, what might follow him would almost certainly be worse. When leading Washington commentators such as David Ignatius start talking up a “truth and reconciliation” process, you kind of know the battle is lost.

This process of geopolitical re-education – it might be termed psychological counter-insurgency – has been gradual but highly effective. One powerful aspect is the highlighting of the growing role of Islamist fundamentalists inside Syria, whom Assad regularly decries as foreign terrorists threatening the Syrian nation. This jihadi “scare factor” is rooted in last February’s video message by the al-Qaida leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he called on pious Muslims, primarily Sunnis living in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq, to help destroy the Syrian regime.

“Since then, the message has spread further afield, and the lure of joining the jihad in Syria against a Shia dictator is drawing in young men from around the world,” said analyst Tobias Feakin in The Australian. Rising numbers of volunteers, estimated at up to 2,500 in total from as far away as Indonesia and Xinjiang in China, have dispersed in myriad suspect groups including the Free Syrian Army, Liwa al-Islam, Katibat al-Ansar, Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, which has close links with al-Qaida in Iraq.

The dawning realisation that Syria was not another Egypt or Libya, whose revolutions produced relatively clear-cut results, and that it might well become another failed state, harbouring al-Qaida fanatics bent on global confrontation, has had a big impact on western opinion, not least in the US. This fear has been compounded by numerous reports, widely credited in Israel and the US, that Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal could fall into jihadi hands. Barack Obama has warned Assad not to use such weapons against his opponents. The bigger fear is that they might one day be used against western targets.

The west’s hedging of bets over Syria has become glaring in recent months even as its rhetoric has intensified. Political demands, principally that Assad step down immediately and without preconditions, have become ever more inflexible. Led by France, the western position is that nothing less than regime change at the top will do. But at the same time, the argument about doing what needs to be done militarily and logistically to ensure that objective, for example by arming the rebels, seems to be over – and the rebels are the losers. Despite the rebooting of opposition forces under the umbrella Syrian National Coalition, weapons supplies and financial aid are drying up. Even the Sunni Gulf states seem to be having second thoughts as they contemplate a post-Assad Syria sliding into post-Saddam style anarchy.

Israel’s decision to build border defences across the Golan and Turkey’s deployment of Patriot missiles along its border symbolise this shifting reality. The aim now is not to liberate Syria but to isolate it and quarantine it and to contain the contagion.

The fact that the US and Britain have looked on as a second UN peace mission by Lakhdar Brahimi runs into the sand (the first, led by Kofi Annan, collapsed last year), the fact that no substantive pressure has been put on Russia’s Vladimir Putin to drop his Syrian diplomatic protection racket, the fact that military intervention is publicly and noisily ruled out and the fact that no concerted international humanitarian relief effort has been mounted to assist Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan all point to one conclusion: that the west is not serious about enforcing Assad’s demise. It is a message that Assad has undoubtedly heard.

“Despite the efforts of Brahimi – and also of more sympathetic powers such as Russia and China, as well as Assad’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – to promote a negotiated settlement, the regime has shown no interest in acceding to a democratic transition that would lead to its ouster. And its leaders believe they are fighting the rebels to a stalemate,” said Tony Karon in Time. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, told Karon that, whatever the US state department might say, the fact is that Assad is not budging.

Landis said:

“Absent some dramatic increase in external intervention, Assad could still be there in 2014. There’s nothing obvious in the current dynamic that’s going to force him out. He has barricaded the major cities with layers of security, allowing the impoverished periphery of some to fall into rebel hands, but then using his air power and artillery to devastate those neighbourhoods. Almost two years into the uprising and despite the rebels’ recent momentum, they have not yet taken full control of a single major city or town.

Despite the confident predictions coming from the rebels and their backers, nobody in the opposition today can explain how they’re going to win. The regime has the unity, it has all the heavy weapons. Many of the rebels continue to operate on the assumption that the US will intervene to tip the balance for them.”
But despite all the huffing and puffing in Washington (and London), decisive intervention is extremely unlikely. It is time the likes of Obama and William Hague admitted this reality and started dealing with what is, rather than what might have been.

# 139. ZOO

Moaz al-Khatib is really bothering you. The biggest criticism you can level at him is that he hasn’t returned to Syria. Get real!

Here’s something for sure – put al-Khatib up against Bashar Assad on a public stage and it would all be over for Bashar. The freak vs an dignified, intelligent authentic human being.

You were sneering because Assad got such a big audience compared with Khatib. I would say enjoy that while you can ZOO.

But realise that the more ugly-looking Assad is seen the better and bigger the relief for viewers when Khatib appears.

144. REVENIRE

Do you actually believe what you write?

It doesn’t feel like it. That strong flavor of satire persists.

And REVENIRE,

I notice you (or someone on your team) have stooped to giving yourself instant mass votes. Waste of time, everyone ignores it as they know the system is corrupted.

This is a “plan” by the SNC for Syria for the “day after” :

وضعت الأمانة العامة لـ\”المجلس الوطني السوري\” المعارض وهو أكبر مكونات \”الائتلاف الوطني لقوى الثورة والمعارضة السورية\”، خطة لـ\”نقل السلطة وبدء المرحلة الانتقالية\” في سوريا في اجتماع عقد في إسطنبول قبل أيام. وأكد مصدر مطلع أنه جرى تسليم الخطة التي تتكون من تسع نقاط إلى \”الائتلاف\”.
ونصت خطة \”المجلس الوطني\” في بندها الأول على أن \”يسمي الائتلاف الوطني لقوى الثورة والمعارضة السورية حكومة موقتة عند توافر الضمانات الدولية بالاعتراف بها، وبعد توفير صندوق دعم نشاطاتها. وتتشكل الحكومة في اجتماع الهيئة العامة للائتلاف، من شخصيات ثورية ووطنية ملتزمة بأهداف الثورة السورية وفق المعايير الواردة في النظام الأساسي للائتلاف، وتمارس مهامها في الأراضي المحررة\”.
وفيما شددت النقطة الثانية في الخطة على \”تنحية بشار الأسد ورموز النظام رضوخاً لمطالب الشعب السوري\”، تم التأكيد أن \”يتولى الائتلاف الوطني السلطة التشريعية والتنفيذية ويصدر مراسيم بإقالة حكومة النظام وحل مجلس الشعب والأجهزة الأمنية باستثناء جهاز الشرطة، وإقالة القيادات العليا للجيش وحل الفرقة الرابعة للجيش والحرس الجمهوري، وإطلاق سراح المعتقلين السياسيين ومعتقلي الثورة\”.
ورأت الخطة أن \”يصدر الائتلاف الوطني مرسوماً بنقل السلطات التنفيذية إلى الحكومة الموقتة، ويعطل الائتلاف العمل بالدستور الحالي، ويُسيّر المرحلة بمراسيم تشريعية\”، وأن \”تشرف الحكومة الموقتة على اتفاق بين قادة الجيش الحر وهيئة الأركان المشتركة وضباط الجيش السوري ممن لم تتلطخ أيديهم بدماء السوريين، لتنظيم عمليات وقف إطلاق النار وسحب الجيش إلى ثكناته، واستيعاب الثوار في الجيش والقوى الأمنية، وضبط الأمن وحفظ السلم الأهلي\”.
ونص البند السابع في الخطة على أن \”يدعو الائتلاف إلى عقد مؤتمر وطني عام يُدعى إليه ممثلو جميع القوى السياسية ومكونات الثورة والمجتمع من دون استثناء، خلال مدة أقصاها شهر واحد من تاريخ إسقاط النظام\”. كما ركزت الخطة على أن \”ينحل الائتلاف بعد انعقاد المؤتمر الوطني العام وتشكيل الحكومة الانتقالية\”، وأن \”يطلق المؤتمر الوطني العام عملية المحاسبة عن جرائم المرحلة السابقة ويشكل هيئة للحقيقة والعدالة والمصالحة الوطنية\”
further evidence that the road is long and bloody

Zoo,

“In the meantime Bashar is Bashar, he is in Syria, his discourse is the same, he does not beg for a foreign powers help, he is proud and he is real.”

Proud of what? Of the headless little girls? Of burning the country? Of being worshiped? Of having thugs burning people alive if their victims do not declare him god? Hitler was proud too..and so any idiot walking in the street. Please give me one reason that should make him proud.

Why is it so difficult for you to see the truth?

Syrialover

Maybe you are right to continue putting your hopes in Al Khatib as the “President of the Syrian Coalition”.
I just don’t think the guy is up to the task.

Only time will tell

SYRIALOVER I don’t give myself votes, am not part of a team and believe EVERYTHING I write.

Who cares how many thumbs up or down we all get? If it were up to me I’d put little Salafist heads in place of the icons.

The war is what I care about and I know our boys vaporized many rats today.

A sample from Ziad’s blog:

“Straight from the Book of Dead Rodents come these stats:

“ALEPPO:

“Astounding victory for Syrian infantry in Bustan Al-Qasr. With the help of inhabitants acting as spotters, 26 rodents were dispatched in a high-quality operation. Here are some of their names made available to us by Wael:

“Sabri Mahmoud Shami
Khalil Zein Mardakoush
Lutfi Muhammad Beshrawi
Mehmet Edhem Erunsal (Turk)
Hassan Hussein Barhoum
Sabah Fahim Muhammadani (non-Syrian)
Ahmet Celik (Turk)

“It has been confirmed that the TERRORIST FILTH has been using mentally ill patients kidnapped from Ibn Khaldoun Hospital for suicide operations. They fit these poor people with remote controlled explosives and direct them to public areas. It is unbelievable. That British terrorist-enablers participate in this gross violation of human rights is testament to the decline of England’s culture and morals.

“DAMASCUS:

“At Aqraba and Yelda, our army killed the following rats:

“Muhaimen Keserwani
Hassan Khalifeh
Dureid Diwanjieh
Sa’ad Al-Akkari
Hassan Khalifeh
Mabrouk Fahs
Abdel-Rahman Haakima
Jalal Al-Rahwan
Jihad Halawati
Ahmad Al-Sawwah
Abdallah Al-Dhafeer

“At Busra Al-Sham, site of one of the world’s most magnificent Roman arenas, our army killed the following grubs as they tried to occupy it:

“Faisal Al-Khalil
Sulayman Al-Ghaddar
Jabr Al-Ibrahim

“Wounded in the same firefight were:

“Ali Al-Masri a/k/a Ali Al-Nayleh ( He is now warbling)
Awdi Ya’qoub (Jordanian)
Nabil Qadhem Arfan (Iraqi)

“At Kafr Batna, we killed:

“Muhammad Shaghouri
Radwan Hoteitati
Muhammad Sa’adaat”

Grind them up boys! Do it for Asma!

#150 Tara

I return the question to you

“Why is it so difficult for you to see the truth?”

#149 Ghufran

The SNC plan.
I am sure even the people of Kafranbel will understand it. It’s clear like cristal and so easy to implement with a magic wand

The ‘cliché’ (to add to the list that Fisk produced) that has been repeated by media and officials who are more than thousands kms away from Syria after Bashar’s speech that he made in person in front of real people, in Syria:

“Bashar al Assad has ‘lost touch with reality'”

Simon Tisdall from the Guardian noted:

“Maybe it is Obama and Hague who lost touch with reality”

If Al Nusra and the Sunni Islamists decide to move to Iraq to help the Sunni revolt against the Shia there, that will be the end of the armed rebellion in Syria.
If the political stalemate remain in Iraq, this may well happen

Zoo

Your position is very difficult to defend. You do not even allow yourself to adopt a line similar to Ghufran’s. You see no evil. How can you not? Please tell me.
Now you can say, you are worried for Syria if Bashar leaves. You can invoke civil war, revenge against minorities, chaos, division, failed state, foreign agenda, Islamists, Afghanistan etc..anything you like ..but to keep seeing Bashar as a proud leader becomes inexcusable. You can even say he is a S.O.B murderer but in your eyes he remained the best choice is also ok but you do not. If what Bashar did is not a failure, what is failure? I don’t question your affection towards Syria. I take what you say at its face value and I do believe you. How could your truth be so much strikingly different than mine? What am I missing?

#157 Tara

Bush is responsible for the death of millions and he stayed 8 years in power, democratically elected. He still lives without being put on trial. Rumsfeld and VP Cheney too. Who cares now?

“evil” and “good” are relative moral notions that have no place in politics.
For some Americans, Bush was a murderer, for others a savior.
For some Syrians, Bashar Al Assad is a murderer, for others he is a protector.
Who can judge who is right and who is wrong?

The Blessed Convoy
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/the-blessed-convoy/

Besides Syria and Iraq, another more exciting magnet for Islamists: The Sinai bordering Israel.

In the North Sinai, Jihadis Stand Down the Egyptian Government
Jan 6, 2013 12:00 AM EST
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/06/in-the-north-sinai-jihadis-stand-down-the-egyptian-government.html
Jihaids now outgun the Egyptian military in the desert bordering Israel and the Gaza strip, reports Alastair Beach.

CAIRO—Hundreds of miles away from the political turmoil here, amid the vast desert expanses bordering the Gaza Strip and Israel, there is a ticking time bomb which grows more dangerous by the day.

Western officials believe that foreign jihadis, possibly from Yemen and Somalia, are among the several hundred extremists operating close to the Israeli border in Egypt’s Sinai desert, according to a senior diplomatic source who spoke to the Daily Beast recently.

Cairo-based diplomats believe that dozens of radicals from across the Middle East have flocked to the barren wilderness, and are taking up the banner of local extremists.

124. ZOO

“When it is proven that I am wrong, I have no problem admitting it”

Whoa! And Mossie has no problem kissing a pig…

Hammoudeh
For a second i thought the article talked about Sheikh As’ad Abu Khalil, and then recognized that it talked about Sheikh As’ad Al-Khalil… what a difference..

Congrats to Hagel! The right choice that annoys Israel and the war mongers neocons

Obama picks Hagel for defense, Brennan for CIA
By Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-nominate-hagel-brennan-top-national-security-posts-121618518.html

Zoo,

“Who can judge who is right and who is wrong?”

You can. I can. This is not a subjective assessment of beauty and attractiveness. Morality is not relative. You can’t protect some at the expense of massive killing of others. If you do, then you should salute Israel and even Hitker. Would you accept a massive killing of minorities after the elimination of Bashar as possibly moral? Can one argue that the perpetrator of such
atrocity is a protector of the non-minority.

I refuse to accept that morality is a relative concept. And I am sure you do too..

Shaykh Kharsa on the Free Syrian Army
http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/shaykh-kharsa-on-the-free-syrian-army/

A Visit To The Eye Doctor

http://www.yalibnan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/assad-cartoon-more-reform-coming-400×244.jpg

After viewing the pathetical appearance of Assad Junior Al Jakhsh Al Mujrim, I have no more comments to do. I think all is said. The core of retarded around Assad are going to be butchered with him if they persist. Good luck to all.

ZOO,

¨Who can judge who is right and who is wrong?¨

Of course you are the one who cannot judge who is wrong and who is not since you are lost and cannot see beyond your eyes.

Right is who is not afraid of elections and freedom, who ask freedom, justice, civil rights and dignity.

Wrong is who torture for 40 years all political opponents and bullet popular demonstrations asking for freedom and change.

Right is always the people on the long term. Wrong are the criminals, mafias and oligarchies who climb to power and do not accept leaving power.

Wrong is someone like Assad and cronnies who have no political and human education to rule a country.

“The core of retarded around Assad are going to be butchered with him if they persist.”

SANDRO LOEWE that’s what you said in 2011. Can you give us a day Assad will fall? “Soon” doesn’t work for me.

Thanks!

Religious warfare haunts Syria’s villages: despatch
Religious groups that have lived peacefully together for generations have been plunged into savage local conflicts, as The Sunday Telegraph discovered in villages deep inside Latakia Province.
(this is a good read with the exception that it contradicts what is known by many about how the trouble started in northern latakia, most sources agree that it was outside militia with strong Turkish links opposed to the regime that ignited the fire)

TARA there is no use arguing with ZOO. He says that Bush and Cheney are war criminals and were never brought to justice and stayed on for 8 years and therefore in politics there is no absolute moral imperative or value. In politics the winner writes the rules. Or so he says.

Well this is a problem not unique to Syria, it is universal BUT the moral imperative remains as you said absolute. The fact that Bush was not brought to justice is beside the point. He did commit a war crime by invading Iraq as it was not in self defense. At the Nurenmberg trial the chief justice asserted that a war of aggression is the ultimate war crime for it permits all other crimes. At those post WWII trials the Russians wanted to bring forth the areal bombing of Russian cities but of course the allies did not allow it as they used this strategy to destroy many German towns.

The victors can bend the rules but the morality or immorality of the acts remains. History will show that the wrongs will not be forgotten as the US congress apologized to the Japanese Americans for their ill treatment and the French apologized for the colonial war in Algeria.

There is among the supporters of the regime issues of fear of change and a loss of privilege but there is also a hatred of the other that is so deeply engrained that it is difficult to suppress or hide.

Hiding behind the understandable fear of a change that may threaten the status quo and the perceived stability there is a much more sinister hatred of the other and in this instance there is very deep hatred of the Sunnis; this is why all of the so called minorities are asking for secularism on the part of the majority Sunnis while they ask to retain their ethnic or sectarian particularism.

This is why there is absolutely no concern for the parts of Syria that are no longer under regime control. They are ready to let go of those areas that refuse to be enslaved and then all actions are permissible to punish them en masse. The regime does not care about losing all of Syria as long as it retains a few cities and downtowns to allow for it and its supporters to continue to claim legitimacy,

When I posted that the regime is illegitimate, the response was “says who”. This is a clear window into the mind of the regime supporters in thinking that they can bestow legitimacy on themselves and they do not have even a minimum of understanding of what constitutes a social contract between the people and the government.

It is an illegitimate regime with a phony president and a phony constitution and a phony economy and a phony security system. Even by the standards of the old constitution it is illegitimate and the speech was nothing more than a pep talk for the demoralized supporters and a message to the upcoming meeting between Russia and the US.

Today not even RT arabic is talking about the speech.

There is a propaganda to paint the speech as also an indication of the success on the ground. Hogwash there is nothing on the ground that can turn the clock back.

Fear is gone and the people are not going back to slavery.

Cheers and Justice for Hamza

You have nothing to say about international law. You can’t arm foreign fighters and send them to a nation like is happening in Syria. That breaks all international law.

I Love this one. It gets you Syrian conspiracy theorists right where you live…

http://latuffcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/syrian-revolution.jpg?w=590&h=858

Actually the joke is on you with that cartoon. For some reason you don’t get it.

The regime wants a military solution, so a military solution it will be.

The war continues. They wish to settle it with violence? So be it.

You weren’t given a choice.

No, I guess the opposition wasn’t. As I’ve said before, this regime only understands violence. Talking to it is pointless.

The fake prethident, hath already fallen. You just can’t comprehend
it you fool. But it seems that you will benefit from the inevitable demise, seems that you have the hots for this Asma call girl of his

By the way, you aren’t the only one, most of the soldiers and officers in his republican guards are waiting in line. After all, they are doing IT for Asma, hoping to graduate from for to to.

Dear TARA and OBSERVER,

It’s actually simple to decide who is right or wrong.

One of the best measures when making a moral judgement is to put cruelty first – where you are not only taking into account actions but looking at the soul of the perpetrators.

Putting cruelty first has been argued by philosphers as a surer measure of who is right or wrong than religion or politics because cruelty inspires immediate revulsion in human beings. (The other thing that does is lying).

The Assad family and their regime is underpinned by cruelty. Some of the jihadist fighters and other members of the opposition forces are also very cruel (and in many cases it is this part of their nature which draws them to getting involved in fighting).

I judge them equally, regardless of what side of the fight they are on. (And I feel powerful unbiased sympathy for ALL Syrians who have suffered cruelty, including members of the Syrian armed forces and their families).

If we put cruelty first it makes them morally unfit to hold any responsibility or make decsions that affect others. Deeply unfit, because they are behaving against the laws of human nature that have enabled society to continue.

One person strong on this is Professor Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi who took on the herculean task of documenting and commemorating the victims of Saddam Hussein.

Makiya has also written about the wider moral failure of the Arab world in tolerating the cruelty of its dictators. His books stirred up a hornets nest among some Arab intellecuals.

Here is his argument for intervention in the Syrian war: http://www.tnr.com/article/world/101070/syria-intervention-baath-civil-war-obama-washington

I’d love to see the US, or NATO, try and invade Syria.

You will not see them because like your master, you will be hiding in the sewer.

Did you visit Ceausescu’s grave today?

Did Ceausescu’s come back to life yet?
or even better
Did حافر come back to life yet?

One more thing

Book your ticket now before it is too late

After having predicted the imminent demise of the Syrian Regime for almost 2 years, the West must get in touch with the realities.

The sanctions did not pay off, the political opposition failed lamentably in uniting despite theatrically staged gimmicks to give the impression it did, the armed rebels, disunited have been lured to join Al Qaeeda terrorists, in other words the Western plan to remove Bashar Al Assad regime failed.

A reality check is now necessary for the ones who were hoping and working for a remake of Libya.
It’s time to reshuffle the cards and start a brand new game.

The choice are simple: A full scale Western initiated war to destroy the defenses of the Syrian army and instate the opposition that is clearly unable to manage the complexity of the aftermath, or a compromise without setting up preconditions to allow the formation of a transition government made of the regime and opposition dedicated to bring back security to the country and calm the spirits or finally to let the situation rot for years with dangerous implications on the neighbors.

Having failed in the regime change, it’s time the West declares what it really wants now.
What the Syrians want now is the end of this mess.

#159. HAMOUDEH AL-HALABI

Huge applause for that impressive convoy of 20 aid-filled vehicles and 6 ambulances from the UK travelling overland to Syria via Turkey – all provided and staffed by Muslim volunteers.

This is the spirit that gives hope that Syria will be rebuilt.

Second fool,,,, your regime already fell when these good girls sang their song. Your killers lost the fear deterrence factors and became nothing more than a sectarian mafia gang taking the country hostage. And we are not about to give ways to killers. You fools should have thought of negotiation before you started killing the hostages. Too late. Still, even in our pain, you remain the butt of our jokes, and your foolish prethident is the master clown in the animal circus you have become, which probably irritates you athad worshipers the most.

OBSERVER,

What you wrote here is the bottom line. Roll on the day when Syria has a legitimate government.

“When I posted that the regime is illegitimate, the response was “says who”. This is a clear window into the mind of the regime supporters in thinking that they can bestow legitimacy on themselves and they do not have even a minimum of understanding of what constitutes a social contract between the people and the government.” (from OBSERVER #171)

It common knowledge that the regime as we know it is in a state of clinical death , I hope I am not stepping on docs toes on this blog, the question is when to pull the plug, grandpa has many heirs who want time to take their share of the estate, they also need time to arrange for a decent funeral and proper burial, I was hoping that we will have an orderly change of chiefs and that the new tribe’s leader will be merciful and not punish the living members of the old tribe but I am not sure that any of my humble wishes will be granted, what a way to start 2013. I am not sure I need to say this or that Hamster cares to hear it but: Hamster, I still like you,man. Let us hope that I was wrong this time with my everlasting pessimism.

SYRIALOVER
Brother, these thugs never had a contract with the people, they had a contract on the people. Mafiosos don’t believe in social contracts. And yet the first fool here thinks that it sound chivalrous to call on his animals to kill in the name of the call girl they call a lady.

GHUFRAN
Don’t you worry, we know and understand what transitional justice is and how it is different from normal justice. Assad sealed his fate with his last foolish blather. But I happen to see signs that only those who stay with him to the last moment will have similar fate. That doesn’t absolve anyone with innocent blood on their hands, or people’s rights in their pockets no matter who they are.

Speaking of the blather, did i read some rabid sectarian here call the turd-dump of speech a gift to Syrians?, well, why I am not surprised, only turds will see turd-dumps as gifts.

Hey GHUFRAN #188

You are on fire with good statements – admitting to everlasting pessimism, and even bigger, admitting that you like SYRIAN HAMSTER.

And the rest of what you said isn’t all bad either.

Dylan Thomas new song for Syria,

Syria the healer

http://dylanconnor.bandcamp.com/track/syria-the-healer

174. MOSSIE

“The joke’s on you with that cartoon. For some reason you don’t get it.”

Oh I got it, Mossie. I’m a lot smarter than you’ll ever be. Except with me, it’s not a joke. It’s real. And it’s cool…

Another cartoon about Asma:

http://africartoons.com/sites/default/files/images/20120711_Brandan_BusDay.preview.jpg

Josh,

Your analysis is becoming less and less lucid. You’re blinded by the very media that you should be influencing. If you really believe there’s going to be a rebel victory any time, even with outside support, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Fisk on the Don Quijote performance in the Damascus opera

Army was the target audience of President’s theatre at the opera house

The message for Syrians was clear: the army is the bedrock of power

“But it was the army which took centre stage. Not the party. Not the family. But the military, which the West regards as little more than war criminals. Did the young civilian men – struggling and fighting to mob their boss as he made his exit with rather too much reality for the security goons – realise this? I bet Assad did. The West will headline the obvious:“I will go one day, but the country stays.” The truth? Intriguing. The man’s not out of the ring. But nor is his army. The war, alas, goes on.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/army-was-the-target-audience-of-presidents-theatre-at-the-opera-house-8440222.html

Why the numbers game doesn’t add up in the killing fields of Syria

Are the dead from Assad’s army even counted in these statistics?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/why-the-numbers-game-doesnt-add-up-in-the–killing-fields-of-syria-8440202.html

“I’d love to see the US, or NATO, try and invade Syria.”

Funny that you forgot to say Israel. Would you like to see that? Oh wait, Assad just said he is behind the Palestinians. So when is he attacking Israel? I guess Israel will just have to get in line behind Deraa, Homs, Hama and many other cities and provinces in Syria which Assad has decided to attack first.

Uzair

Obelix chez les Russes

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=492108240827905&set=a.396487047056692.86954.395771127128284&type=1&theater

Watch this very brave and very beautiful Syrian child talk about losing her leg in an air strike and what it has done to her life.

There are countless thousands like her who have lost limbs or have been permanently disabled in other ways by airforce attacks on densely populated civilian areas.

Watch it and weep.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7qjpnMGDXM&feature=youtu.be

THis one example brings home the huge cruelty, pointlessness and evil of Bashar Assad’s strategy of collective punishment of Syrians.

Who the HELL are he and his gang to dish out “punishment” to ordinary people who happen to live in the same country? Punishment for what? For others disrespecting him? In case they add to the threat to Assad & Co’s privileges and wealth?

A minor consoling thought: Maher Assad lost BOTH legs.

AIG

The position of Salahedin is currently open, and someone has to declare the mother of all battles.They better not hand out photos of Batta to the military, that might not work well on the morale, better would be the picture of this femail shabiha Batta liked so much in his email account.

Zoo

What happend to this claim that the Electronic army has some revealing material about the Emir of Quatar?

AIG,

“So when is he attacking Israel?”

ah you see by shooting SCUDS at Aleppo he was actually aiming for Tel Aviv, you just can’t hit a cow’s ass with a banjo. Which is what you get when using Ruskie armament that was based on technology stolen from WW2 German Nazi V-2 rockets being used by a mad man trying to destroy the grand conthrpirathy againtht Thouria Al-Athad.

Thimple really when you think about.

Qunfuz :
Discussing Assad’s Speech at the Opera House
by Robin Yassin-Kassab
http://qunfuz.com/2013/01/07/discussing-assads-speech-at-the-opera-house/
“It was operatic in its otherworldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building,” wrote Rami Khouri of Bashaar al-Assad’s latest speech, delivered as the bombs fell on southern Damascus. I was a guest on the BBC World Service to discuss the speech alongside Patrick Seale (Hafez al-Assad’s biographer), Syria Comment’s Joshua Landis, Faisal Yafai of the National, and Dr Yazan Abdullah. You can listen to the conversation here.(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p012s40f)

I know that Haytham Mannah is an educated, cultured man. I know that he is one of the leaders of the National Coordinating Body for Democratic Change. I know that he is in Paris, and that Azim is in Damascus. I know that Azim spoke at a press conference in Damascus to say ‘shove it up your ass, DonkeyKing’ (I paraphrase).

But I have spent some time with the Haytham Mannah’s just-published interview on the NCB/NCC website, with video .

The website says fuck all about Azim’s press conference. Azim got all the facetime on English media. Mannah’s appearance on ‘Headlines’ has not yet received much comment. Could this be the future transition PM of the ‘unity’ government, as stated by Al-Akhbar, or did Mannah simply deliver a more elegantly phrased fuck you to the ‘peace proposal’?

Here is the actual full transcript of the Opera House Speech, in the official impeccable SANAnglish translation, courtesy of ibtimes.com (I am tempted to post the entire thing, all 10,000 words, but I think most have their own version in their minds. I note in passing that the actual official SANAnglish translootion is not actually available on the SANA ‘English’ site …)

We hysterical Canadians** are confused (except for the Canadians like ZOO and REVENIRE, who apparently know all).

Could someome with intimate knowledge of the actors summarize Mannah’s wise words? Arabic fluency might help, but who knows.

Maybe, just maybe, President Assad is talking about Mannah in these three clear and concise paragraphs:

In light of this, there cannot be talk about a solution unless we take into consideration these factors: the internal, the regional and the international. Any measure that does not change these factors is not a real solution and has no impact. Let’s start with the internal front: if some tended to see the disagreement in the beginning as one between loyalists and the opposition, this disagreement in a civilized world should be over the way to build the homeland not destroy it, over developing it rather than taking it decades back. When part of the people becomes tied to foreign powers, the conflict becomes between the homeland and outside powers, between the country’s independence and hegemony over it, between staying free being politically occupied; and hence the issue becomes defending the homeland and all of us unify against the outside aggression which is aided by some internal tools.

So, when we say external opposition or any such words we don’t mean the place where these people live; rather we mean the place where they set their hearts and minds, their affiliation and bondage, and most importantly their funding. This is what we mean by outside, whether they live inside or outside, as there are people living outside but they defend their country.

It is not a matter of loyalists against opposition, nor an army vis-à-vis gangs and criminals. We are in a state of war in the full sense of the word.

[ . . . ]

Let us put each issue in its context, since we are living now in an age of falsification and misinterpretation. It’s not us who are interpreting things, but this is the general case, that is to interpret things contrary to their meanings. Therefore, let us place things in their context and correct the ideas and terms being proposed.

[ . . . ]

Those citizens have demonstrated deep awareness. The aspired-to security does not come through fence-sitting, watching, escaping or groveling to the outside. If we are not fine in our country, we won’t be so anywhere outside it. The homeland is not for those who dwell in it, but for those who defend it. The homeland is not for those who enjoyed its blessings and shade but were not there when it called for them.

[ . . . ]

As for the amnesty, the civil rights of the complainants will be preserved as the state can waive its right but has no right to waive the rights of the plaintiffs.

I believe though that when we have reached that stage, it will be an amnesty granted not only by the state but also by those who have rights.

[ . . . ]

Afterwards, new parliamentary elections are held.

We may put the word ‘if’ as far as everything related to the constitution and laws is concerned because everything will be contingent on reaching agreement regarding the contribution and laws in the dialogue conference, which will be then presented by the government once they are agreed on.

This is the roadmap: it starts here and goes over there somehow, in detail as shown, with referendum and committee[s] as the constitutions say so fine. Since we will have new constitutions we may have as many as fifteen pacts, I mean accords, I mean revo… referenda consultations binding not fifteen but three, I mean two, twice., once by the government yet for the people who I am. One Man, One Country, One Leader, in bed happy dreaming reality for all to see if only they could hear. But they can, not?

____________

** was everyone as astonished as ZOO to discover yesterday that I too was a Canadian?

Destruction at Aleppo Citadel

Assad’s supporters who constantly attack and demonize Qatar’s emir have no idea what they are taking about.

I recently moved to Qatar from the US. The country is investing heavily in its infrastructure, future and people. From world-class universities (Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwest, etc.) which are FREE to Qatari citizens and many non-citizens who are granted scholarships (and btw more than 50% of Qatari students are females), to a vibrant economy driven by the services sector, to incubation of R&D centers, to amazing cultural events and landmarks (Islamic and Arab museums, etc.) Not to mention the downtown’s skyline (which was built in last decade), a beautiful Corniche, parks, great and clean public beaches. I can go on and on. You think winning the contest to host the world cup is a small matter?

The Qataris I met are well-educated, well-traveled, well-spoken, and are open, friendly and vocal.

Please tell me, what did the Assads do with Syria’s wealth over the past 50 years? Occupy Lebanon, built a world-class secret-service apparatus, amassed expensive and archaic weaponry – good enough to use against the citizens of the country, but cannot fend off external enemies? Oh, and I forgot – built a nice opera house so they can deliver lame speeches to the citizens who worship them!

Let’s see, let’s compare how Syria fared against Singapore (a country will less people and less resources) over the past 40 years:

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=wb-wdi#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:SYR:SGP&ifdim=country&tstart=316126800000&tend=1262898000000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false

Remember the Allegory of the Cave? It is Obama and the West who are deluded not Assad. The FSA’s delusions knew no bounds and believed NATO would ride to their rescue except, as our president said, Syria is not Libya. NATO sent weapons and men to train Al-Qaeda but could not impose a No-Fly Zone despite FSA attempts to provoke one. Foolish ‘activists’ suffered under the delusion there was a FSA when all it ever was is a loose band of separate gangs that never were united and fight among themselves over stolen loot,

The child lost her leg because of the fake revolution and no other reason – just like all the other children. She doesn’t get ‘adopted’ by the revolution of terrorists. Jihadis don’t get to take our children and parade them around.

The destruction in Aleppo, and other Syrian cities, is entirely the fault of the criminals and terrorists. They made many statements to the effect that ‘Aleppo had not joined the revolution’ so they had to bring it there. Destroying the infrastructure of Syria was part of their plan all along.

#202 you brought up a point that has not been overshadowed by others: economy.

The protest and rebellion have everything to do with the failed Syrian economy in a nationwide scale. Basically, it is also a class war in disguise.

Right now, it is pretty late to address it or do anything about it.

As far as Qutar, the emir has been using his money to buy influence. But it won’t gain respect without moral backup.

Syrians should never forgive what the emir did to us.

From the New York Times:

Hints of Syrian Chemical Push Set Off Global Effort to Stop It

In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.

Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria’s increasingly desperate president, Bashar al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.

What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being.

But concern remains that Mr. Assad could now use the weapons produced that week at any moment. American and European officials say that while a crisis was averted in that week from late November to early December, they are by no means resting easy.

“I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war,” one senior defense official said last week. “What Assad understood, and whether that understanding changes if he gets cornered in the next few months, that’s anyone’s guess.”

While chemical weapons are technically considered a “weapon of mass destruction” — along with biological and nuclear weapons — in fact they are hard to use and hard to deliver. Whether an attack is effective can depend on the winds and the terrain. Sometimes attacks are hard to detect, even after the fact. Syrian forces could employ them in a village or a neighborhood, some officials say, and it would take time for the outside world to know.

But the scare a month ago has renewed debate about whether the West should help the Syrian opposition destroy Mr. Assad’s air force, which he would need to deliver those 500-pound bombs.

The chemical munitions are still in storage areas that are near or on Syrian air bases, ready for deployment on short notice, officials said.

The Obama administration and other governments have said little in public about the chemical weapons movements, in part because of concern about compromising sources of intelligence about the activities of Mr. Assad’s forces. This account is based on interviews with more than half a dozen military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the intelligence matters involved.

[ … ]

#203. REVENIRE said:

“The child lost her leg because of the fake revolution and no other reason”

You sound like someone who is sending up the Assadists, deliberately making extreme and ludicrous statements.

Is that your game? (Or are you just clumsy at doing your job).

The war continues.

Joshua Landis wrote that “But in the end, the numbers are likely to be decisive. The regime does not have an infinite supply of supporters who can fight. The rebels probably do.”

The implicit assumption is that this is a sectarian war of Sunni against Alawites. But while that applies in parts of the countryside in the big cities the class war aspect is much more important with support for the rebels mainly coming from poor quarters with people who recently migrated from the countryside. Recent reports about rebels stealing and destroying many of Aleppo’s small factories certainly won’t have endeared them with the more developed city dwellers.

Class wars are seldom won by the underclass. Add to that the divisions among the rebels, their incompetence in ruling the areas they have conquered, their lack of leadership, their dependence on foreign support and the high attrition rate among the rebel fighters. In times of war both sides are usually learning fast and it is unpredictable who will improve most, but I think a rebel victory is far from certain.

المخابرات الروسية: كلينتون أصيبت جراء سقوط طائرتها في الأحواز
ماطت المخابرات العسكرية الروسية اللثام عن معلومات جرى تداولها داخل الكرملين تفيد بأن وزيرة الخارجية الأمريكية هيلاري كلينتون قد أصيبت وقتل قائد القوات البحرية الأمريكية في حادث تحطم طائرتهم “سي 12 هورون” لنقل الركاب والنقل العسكري منذ 3 أسابيع بمدينة الأحواز الإيرانية قرب الحدود العراقية.
وأشار التقرير الروسي إلى أن وكالة الاستخبارات الإيرانية أقرت بأن الطائرة C-12 هورون ما زالت بحوزتها في الأحواز، ولكنها تحدثت عن أنها أجبرت على الهبوط بسبب عطل فني”.
وجاء في التقرير أن عضو القوات البحرية الأمريكية الذي قتل فى هذا الحادث أنه قائد من طراز رفيع ومؤهل على درجة عالية من التخصص لحماية كبار الدبلوماسيين أثناء السفر بالشرق الأوسط ومناطق القتال الآسيوية.
وبحسب شبكة “نافذة مصر” بثت وسائل الإعلام الأمريكية أنباء عن أن تحقيقات تجري حول إمكانية أن يكون موت هذا المسئول العسكري نتيجة “انتحار”، وهو ما وصفته وزارة الدفاع الأمريكية بأنه (إصابة غير ذات صلة قتالية) علي غير الواقع والحقيقة
إلى ذلك تحدثت وسائل الإعلام الأمريكية عن أن وزيرة الخارجية هيلاري كلينتون ستعود للعمل الأسبوع المقبل بعد ما عانت مما وصفته بأنه نوبة من انفلونزا بالمعدة مع ارتجاج ، وهو التبرير الذي أعلن لتغطية غيابها عن الظهور فى الأسابيع الثلاثة الماضية.
وتضمن تقرير الاستخبارات الروسية أن طلعات الطيران العسكري الأمريكي المسجلة عن طريق القوات الجوية والفضاء الروسية كشفت أن القائد بالبحرية الأمريكية ومعه 4 من أعضاء البحرية الأمريكية غادروا قاعدتهم في مقاطعة أور وزجان الأفغانية على متن رحلة جوية إلى القاعدة البحرية الأمريكية بالبحرين حيث التقوا الوزيرة كلينتون ثم انتقلوا جميعاً بالهورون C-12 التي بدأت مسار

#195 Juergen

LOL. You recognised the film connections.

Yes. Rasputin got his (Russian equivalent of) Green Card.

Btw Depardieu has really ballooned (weight). I saw a clip of him meeting Putin.

90-year-old Saudi man buys underage girl for marriage

The marriage of a 90-year-old man to a 15-year-old girl has sparked condemnation from human rights and social media activists throughout Saudi Arabia, while the groom insists that he has committed no crime.

­The girl, who was sold by her parents for almost $20,000, reportedly became terrified of the man on their first wedding night. After locking herself in her room for two days, she managed to escape and return to her parents.

In an interview, the 90-year-old man insisted that his marriage was “legal and correct,” and that he had paid a dowry of $17,500 to marry her, pan-Arabic news website Al Arabiya reported.

He said that on his first night with the bride, she went into the bedroom before him, locking the door from the inside so he could not enter, making him “suspicious about some kind of conspiracy” between the bride and her mother.

Friends of the bride’s family said that she was frightened on the wedding night, and escaped to her parents’ house after locking herself in the room for two consecutive days.

The man has vowed to sue his in-laws to return either the girl or the dowry.

Suhaila Zein al-Abedin, a member of the Saudi National Association for Human Rights (NSHR), has urged Saudi authorities to intervene “as soon as possible to save this child from tragedy.”

He noted that in Islam, marriage must be based on mutual consent, and the fact that the girl locked herself in her room proved otherwise.

The girl’s parents should be held responsible for marrying their daughter to a man 75 years older than her – old enough to be her great-grandfather, he explained.

He also urged that a minimum age should be established for marrying young girls, which could lead to violators being punished, pan-Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat reported.

Psychologist Jamal al-Toueiki said that forced marriage may subject girls to abuse and violence, and could lead to suicide if nothing is done to save them.

Twitter users were scathing in their condemnation. Legal expert Mouhammad Khaled Alnuzha asked: “Is this a case of human trafficking crimes punishable by law?”

Samira al-Ghamdi, a psychologist at a child protection center, wrote on Twitter, “We need a law to penalize these acts… enough child abuse.”

Nawal Saad wrote, “When people of reason and wisdom are asked to be silent and the ludicrous are set loose, we will see these anti-human behaviors.”

Around a fifth of all marriages in Saudi Arabia end in divorce, with forced marriages finally being outlawed in 2005.

But the Kingdom has no law against child marriage, and clerics and religious judges justify the practice based on Islamic and Saudi tradition.

During 2010, nearly 60,000 Saudi couples tied the knot in the conservative Muslim kingdom, while there were more than 18,000 divorce cases.

“This means that the Kingdom is suffering from a marriage failure rate of nearly 30 percent,” a local study revealed in a report published by Dubai-based website Emirates 24/7. “As a result, Saudi Arabia is suffering from a high number of female spinsters, who are now estimated at 1.5 million…. the number could rise above 4 million in the next five years.”

http://rt.com/news/old-saudi-underage-marriage-523/
___________________________________________________________________

This is the culture Ikwanis & Salafis want Syria to emulate!

When God Almighty decides to punish anyone, He, in His Mercy, gives them every opportunity to reform/rectify their behaviour.

This speech shows, if further evidence was needed, it’s clear Assad and his regime are not for turning. They should prepare for the Wrath of God.

Watch this space…..

The story of the 90 yo man marrying a 15 yo is sad and laughable. Isn’t he afraid of dying at his wedding night?

Tara

“You can’t protect some at the expense of massive killing of others.”

That’s what the NATO did in Libya only recently.. it is estimated that 80,000 people dies in silence.
In Algeria 300,000 people dies because the Islamists wanted the country to become Islamist and the government fought back. Horror stories abound and demonization went both sides.

What are the FSA using car bombs are doing?
Whom are the rebels protecting? Most civilians are gone from the areas they liberated. The armed terrorists are protecting only themselves in order to kill more the Syrian army..
Each one who believes he detains the truth, give himself the right to kill to defend it.
The question to ask: who decides which side detains the ‘moral truth’?
Unfortunately it is only history that does.

197. Juergen said:

“What happend to this claim that the Electronic army has some revealing material about the Emir of Quatar?”

Duno , ask one your “friends” there..

@210
Did you attend your KKK meeting today?

Rawya Rageh @RawyaRageh 1h
#Qatar PM ‘shocked that after two years #Assad still stubborn’ #Syria

https://twitter.com/RawyaRageh/statuses/288634112502296576

@other Athad lovers

Did you visit Ceausescu’s grave today?

Did Ceausescu’s come back to life yet?

Did حافر come back to life yet?

Did you perform you your morning Jong Un prayers?

Saddam was captured from his spiderhole.

Gaddafi was found hiding in a drainpipe.

As for the Rabbit of Golan, will the rebels smoke him out of his warren?

I’m sure, they will first try the carrot and stick approach to get him to surrender.

How I survived Syria’s killing fields

We found Mohammed Ali by chance. He works in a petrol station in Reyhanli, a Turkish town on the Syrian border, and sleeps on the floor in a back room.

“It was a miracle,” he said. “When I think about it there’s no explanation except that Allah didn’t want me to die. My hour had not yet come.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/how-i-survived-syrias-killing-fields/story-fnb64oi6-1226549823584

Zoo,

Absolutely no. Morality is not equivocal. And Actions taken in self defense or as part of responsibility to protect are not the same as an aggression war. The “Syrian army” is killing people to keep Bashar in the seat. The FSA is defending itself. There is no equivocality there.

That is not to say that suicide bombing is moral as it kills innocent bystanders but the Syrian army perpetrating aggression is a fair and legit target.

The difference between you and me is that you are characterizing entities as good and bad regardless of their actions. I do not. I feel at liberty to condemn suicide bombing, beheading, or execution without trials perpetrated by some elements in the FSA, while you always turned a blind eye on the actions of the regime no matter how criminal it is.

Tara

The “FSA” and its terrorists Al Qaeeda friend are killing people to grab the power by force and make Syria a puppet of either the Islamists or the West.
The Army is protecting the state and its citizens to keep Syria proudly independent as it has always been.

Can’t you see that beyond your personal hatred for Bashar Al Assad?

Bashar al Assad offered a dialog to stop the killing, the FSA offered more blood. Who is the aggressor now ? who lost all morality?

Zoo,

You are now changing historical facts and I don’t like that. Please go back to March/2011 when it first started. Please also review how the FSA came to life. The FSA was born out of defectors from the “Syrian army” who could not get themselves to kill their own people. Its inception was not carried our by Islamists wanting to establish Imaras. I am not denying the presence of Islamists. I am not denying foreign intervention. it was a natural consequence thereafter but to proclaim that the FSA wanted Bashar’s seat to make Syria a puppet of the Islamists and the west is far far from truth.

Wim, give a listen to the five way BBC discussion between Landis, Qunfuz, Yazan Abdullah, Seale and Faisal al-Yafai noted just up thread by ANNIE. Perhaps Joshua Landis will be humbled and grateful for this fresh note suggesting he has been duped, especially after your five earlier posts on Houla, Darayya, ‘massacres,’ the lessons of Afghanistan, and how he misidentified the cause of Syrian sectarianism in his New York Times article.

And don’t be surprised if you get tagged as a lazy thinker afer your post about how everyone was getting the ‘insurgents’ wrong; there is war in Syria, and that war’s extremes are in play here, and people now play dirty, in sometimes extremely ugly, shocking ways (from all nine ‘sides’).

There is still no moderator, so be prepared to defend your opinions without whining about Eurocentric bias and stupid long-time Syrian scholars. If you cannot discuss Syria events without insisting all adopt the Assad perspective, you will be pushed onto the rails of one of the You People argument trains.

Your label choices are rather limited to Regime Stooge or offshore Minhebakji Coma Victim.

+++++++++++++++

I think a more honest title to the Telegraph story you link to would be:

“Our Editors told us to simplify things to the point of stupidity, and to talk to four people in one village and outskirts or whatever the fuck we could get. The idea was ‘bring us back some sexy “frontline objectivity” and make sure the dominant impression is that this was for all a mysteriously opaque story, and that by taking huge risks we bring you a slice of truth from the heart of darkness.

We had no way of checking out any of our informant’s stories, and we include glaring contradictions that we hope you do not notice. From our six informants in one village we extrapolate almost to the entire nation of 23 million people (minus its three million displaced inside and out).

When we mention bombs falling, please don’t notice that we make it appear they fell from Zeus’s forehead rather than an actual ‘side.’ Don’t wonder how the author could pass on that the prime informant, scary/spooky Sunni man knew he was blowing the brains of his friends out in the dark.

Oh, and make sure that neither your reader nor we have been briefed on the difference between Turkomen (not Turkmen, though) and Turkish men. Turks in Syria are all recent (since March 18th 2011), and no one with real journalistic suavity can tell the fucking difference between Alevis in Turkey and Alawis in Turkey anyway. Don’t ask what Cherkess people are, not a fucking clue.

Um, All Druze wear different hats and worship some fucking nonsense that we don’t understand and they all support/ignore Assad because of fear — don’t ask a selection of Druze, nobody does. Oh, did I mention that there are Christians in Syria, or rather were, since all of them were driven out of Homs, a formerly mixed city, by Satanists? As if all the other groups were still having pool parties.

No one knows where those Christians have gone, probably in mass graves somewhere that no one knows about because of the ‘fog of war.’

We cut through that fog for you, and you won’t even know you are falling down a sheer cliff of stupidity because that would be dissonant to a self-image as war-weary Western expert on mysterious savage darker-style exotics whom Wim Roffel can effortlessly expound upon — rather than that dolt Landis.

Don’t mention that we don’t speak a fucking word of Arabic and don’t even mention it in a kind of cool, critical Sharmine Narwani with a hatpin to the eye kinda American-Iranian anyway.

Oh keerist, I forgot to mention Sunnis. They are Islamic.

Don’t think about what that means, just kind of hint darkly that it is not all that great because of um Al Nusra (some bitch in copyediting fixed our spelling).

What else?

Oh yeah, Alawis drink alcohol. All of them. Sunnis don’t. And they respect their Christian friends’ Xmas trees, whereas the Sunnis don’t.

If you can’t find Lattakia on the map, don’t worry, neither could we, we were driven in though mysterious little known back roads.

Anyhow, there is your headline. If we get it wrong, fuck it. We are heading back to Lebanon to get rat-arsed with the privileged but not as scary Lebanese swine, who are doing fine. Oh, and remember the nun, whatshername? Wait, no room. Christians are Christians, appeal to blood, rumour, panic, fear, blah.

Oh, man, I forgot the Jews. Syria is an ancient mosaic, Jesus walked from Beit Yahoo to Damascus or something. Jews used to flourish in Syria until Israel forced them to move one night in 1948, when Zionist tractor beams hauled them out of their place in the mosaic. No they live in Brooklyn. Tragic stuff, but boring. Like boring population transfers anywhere. We know what Jews are. The moment the beam plopped them across the border they turn Zionist, which as you might have noticed is supported to the HILT by the Telegraph’s owner and editors by secret hand signals, which we don’t talk about.

And finally, remember that story we posted about the brother of AlQaeda captured in some hellhole near Damascus?

Well, that story was phony but you won’t notice the correction because who gives a fuck, Telegraph don’t.

Anyway, there is a slightly more objective headline.

We can stick in the further weasel-word ‘caveats’ like ‘no one knows’ later to make our dumber implications seem less, well, whatever. Churnalism.

All without giving you a least impression of the terrible things Assad père et fils did to the Alawis by yoking them to a brutal authoritarian state and coercing devotion, and subsuming their future and independent identity under the Assadist State.

Where to next? Off to our exciting assigment: ‘Lochness, the mystery endures’ or maybe ‘Zimbabwe and the Lost Jews”

— hope that helps you get re-oriented, Wim. We welcome European wobbly leftishes who cite rightist British broadsheets and sigh that Landis is an dullardly wonk who doesn’t quite get it. If you want to go that way, go all the way in a professional manner like ZOO or with completely whacked out abandon like REVENIRE.

Landis has not read the comments in about a year, since people started going ultra-snakey-hatey here.

Party on. You are scheduled for your next self-regarding post in about, oh, three months.

Hope someone leaves a note on your own pristine blog by then.

ZOO
In Algeria the FIS won at the ballot box. The military junta annuled the elections and waged war. Not the other way around. You lie in our faces

Tara

Sorry.. going back to see “who started it” is a waste of time and unproductive. That may an element of a history book of this ‘revolution’ published in a few years.
Who cares now how the FSA was created?

What counts is what it has become now. It has become a group of armed rebels fed and paid by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, hosted by Turkey and associated with Al Qaeeda: a shameful disaster
All along, advised by foreign powers, they made one strategic mistake after the others, and look how the Syrians are paying dearly, thrown in refugees camps or displaced instead of being ‘protected’ as they were promised..

As for the expat opposition it started by some weirdozs on Facebook, excited by the easiness of the egyptian revolution, who were calling to overthrow the ‘evil’ government, then became the “baby” of corrupted Sarkozy and ended up the puppet of Qatar and Turkey with absolutely zero political power. What a success!

If you call that a revolution that Syrians should be proud of, then we have certainly a very different notion of what is national pride.

Either you make a national revolution with your own people and only your people without begging help from foreigners, or you just don’t do it.

قال هيثم مناع في تصريح لصحيفة السفير إن وفداً من معربة وبصرى الشام ذهب لمقابلة أبو الزبير الليبي، قائد “جبهة النصرة” في حوران، وطلب منه “إخراج المقاتلين من بيوتنا، لكي لا نهان باللجوء في الأردن”، فكان جواب الليبي “هذه ليست أرضكم، هذه أرض جهاد ورباط ، فإما أن تجاهدوا معنا وإما أن ترحلوا عنها”
Avoiding the subject will not make it go away, allowing islamist thugs in was a huge mistake, all Syrians will pay the price for years to come.
I am looking at stories from Idleb describing the behavior of those thugs and how they treat locals,especially women. Those groups dealt a major blow to the uprising,not just the regime, and did more harm than good regardless of which angle you use to look at the subject.

Let’s take a look at a small section of the president’s historic speech:

“We are fighting those, most of whom are non-Syrians, who came for twisted concepts and fake terms they call Jihad, but nothing can be farther from Jihad and Islam. Most of them are terrorists instilled with al-Qaeda thought, and I believe that most of you know how this kind of terrorism was fostered three decades ago in Afghanistan by the West and with Arabs’ money. After the mission of these terrorists ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its departure from Afghanistan, terrorism broke loose and started hitting everywhere in the Arab world, the Islamic world and then moved to the West. They tried to get rid of it through Afghanistan War and in the aftermath of Iraq’s War, but this terrorism was unyielding and pervasive, and started to infiltrate Western societies. So, the events in the Arab world, especially in Syria, presented the Western powers with an opportunity to transfer as many terrorists as possible to Syria to turn it into the land of Jihad, hence dispensing with two troublesome rivals at the same time through getting rid of the terrorists and weakening Syria which is a nuisance for the West.”

In this section the president gives us all a short history lesson.

The West backed the mujahideen in Afghanistan. They were recruited to fight the former USSR in a proxy war and would later become elements of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They would turn – like a Frankenstein monster – on their patrons. Osama bin Laden came out of this swamp. Today his wicked children – Jabhat al-Nusra – cheer for Osama’s 911 attack (we have all seen the “activist” videos of this).

Today it is much the same in Syria. Foreign nations recruited a terrorist army fed by foreign money and arms – “Syrian Contras” if you will.

One goal of the West is to attract Al-Qaeda to Syria so that the SAA can kill them all but in the process the goal is to destroy the SAA and the nation of Syria. The West sees it as killing two birds with one stone; former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said as much about the Iran-Iraq war.

President Assad told the world how this happened – his logic is irrefutable, as is his grasp of recent history.

The “rebels” are a cancer that must be destroyed.

Assad is doing the world a favor.

Jabhat al Nusra executes 3 rapists

GHUFRAN no one “allowed” the Takfiri apes to come in. They were sent in. They were solicited. This happened at the very first “demonstration” – let’s not argue about it. Al-Qaeda was sent to Syria by the West and their Muslim Brotherhood allies. We can call them many names: NATO death squads, Takfiris, Salafists, al-Nusra, etc. They are all criminals (in fact, many foreign fighters have been released from prisons of various Gulf states). Syrian blood means nothing to them.

Will the Al-Nusrah Front Announce an Islamic Emirate for Yarmouk Palestinian Camp?

Notes From Damascus by FRANKLIN LAMB
http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Will-the-Al-Nusrah-Front-A-by-Franklin-Lamb-130107-67.html

Yarmouk Camp, Damascus
….
Some fleeing Palestinians refugees at the Maznaa crossing mention that they fear that AL-Qaeda affiliates are taking over Yarmouk camp and want to establish an Islamic Emirate.

With a long-time Palestinian friend, I visited the camp this morning and inquired. Contrary to some of the many rumors regarding late breaking developments in Damascus, Syrian army units guarding the main entrance to Yarmouk camp and patrolling the adjacent areas are not preventing Americans and other foreigners from entering. They simply warn them not to enter but do not block them or arrest them. Certain parts of the large camp, more like a large urban neighborhood, divided along Yarmouk and Palestine streets, appear quite safe.

But there are sections of Yarmouk where the Al Nusra Front is very much in control and are actively setting up social service centers and training bases for arriving recruits from a number of countries as well as, regrettably, some Palestinians. The latter I was advised are mostly unemployed, school dropouts, or perhaps under the sway of a fiery salafist sheik who gives sermons on the virtues of jihad. The recruits are receiving a weapon, some training and cash and “religious instruction” wherein they are falsely instructed that the Holy Koran demands of them to liberate Yarmouk from non-believers including those who are not Sunni, and to establish in the liberated areas an Islamic Emirate while dismantling the legacy of Sykes-Picot.
…
Some of the camp inhabitants expect that the Syrian army will enter Yarmouk with massive force in an attempt to expel al Nusra Front and their allies but others are saying that the army is very reluctant to do so because it would be accused of destroying a Palestinian refugee camp.

Still others say that it’s currently a waiting game until the current crisis is resolved and that they will simply avoid the growing jihadist areas of the camp as best they can until the end of the crisis. This observer detected among several he spoke with, that there exists a certain amount of optimism that the crisis will soon be resolved and they are watching this month’s scheduled US-Russia meeting for signs.

Talking with some of the Syrian soldiers at the entrance to Yarmouk, and asking for their assessments, the query often elicits a terse response to the effect that they are “preparing to secure the area and awaiting orders.”

Dialogue my foot to be polite. Dialogue under the umbrella of the present regime without questioning anything that it does.
Why don’t you read someone who is so pacifist that many have dismissed and is being floated as the next prime minister since Russia likes him: Haytham Man’aa even he cannot fathom a dialogue.
This is beyond ignorance. It is delusional to think the regime can dialogue.

The Yarmouk camp issue must be taken seriously by the “State of Palestine” who has the responsibility to protect its citizen.

Fighting flares in Palestinian camp in Damascus, riot in Jordan camp

8 January 2013 / AP, DAMASCUS/BEIRUT
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-303492-fighting-flares-in-palestinian-camp-in-damascus-riot-in-jordan-camp.html
,
Representatives of Palestinian factions in Syria are calling for an immediate cease-fire after fighting flared at a refugee camp in Damascus.

Activists say five people were killed in the Yarmouk camp on Tuesday, including four who died when a shell struck their street and a fifth shot by a sniper.

The fighting pits gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad against opposition forces, who now control much of the camp.

The camp was the scene of heavy clashes in the past, but the battles subsided last month after the opposition battled the loyalists to a stalemate. Palestinians fight on both sides.

It was not clear what triggered this flare-up.
Jordan riot

Elsewhere, Syrian refugees in a Jordanian camp attacked aid workers with sticks and stones on Tuesday, frustrated after cold, howling winds swept away their tents and torrential rains flooded muddy streets overnight.

An important part of the war on Syria is the media aspect of the war – almost all Western press are involved. This is called psychological warfare. Reporters are not really reporters but foreign fighters. Two obvious examples are Richard Engel and Austin Tice – both men illegally entered Syria then were turned into ’cause célèbre’ among terrorist backers.

We remember how the West lied about Iraqi WMD when we hear stories of Syrian chemical weapons. The British criminal Hague is, perhaps, the biggest liar and hypocrite of the bunch.

Zoo

“Can’t you see that beyond your personal hatred for Bashar Al Assad?”

Please do not give yourself a satisfaction from explaining my position based on some sinister personal revengeful family-feud hatred illusion you imagining its existence.

I told before وحياتك عندي your psychological analysis is not correct. I would not lie swearing on your life
,,

CNN shows Assad is right: Syria is fighting terrorism
Lie too big to hide anymore
Media forced to cover story of criminals who rape and murder Syrians

Analysis: Study shows rise of al Qaeda affiliate in Syria
By Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/08/analysis-study-shows-rise-of-al-qaeda-affiliate-in-syria/

A jihadist group with links to al Qaeda has become the most effective of the different factions fighting the regime, according to a new analysis, and now has some 5,000 fighters.

The group is Jabhat al-Nusra, which was designated an al Qaeda affiliate by the United States government last month. It is led by veterans of the Iraqi insurgency “and has shown itself to be the principal force against Assad and the Shabiha,” according to the study.

CNN obtained an advance copy of the analysis, set to be released Tuesday by the Quilliam Foundation, a counterterrorism policy institute based in London.

“The civil war in Syria is a gift from the sky for al-Nusra; they are coasting off its energy,” the lead author of the report, Noman Benotman, told CNN.

Benotman, a former prominent Libyan Jihadist who was personally acquainted with al Qaeda’s top leaders including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, consulted Western and regional intelligence officials as well as jihadists in Syria, including “al-Nusra sources.”

And at a time of optimism that the global threat from al Qaeda terrorism has crested, the study will fuel anxiety in Western capitals that a powerful al Qaeda affiliate may become entrenched in the heart of the Arab world, creating deep challenges in any post- al-Assad Syria, and a new threat to international security.

Founding meetings

Al-Nusra, according to the report, is a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, aka AQI, the terror outfit founded by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

AQI was rebranded the “Islamic State of Iraq” after al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. missile strike in 2006. Since the pull-out of U.S. troops from Iraq, ISI has regained strength, feeding off the continued political and sectarian turbulence in Iraq.

When designating al-Nusra a terrorist group in December, the U.S State Department cast the group as “an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.”

“AQI emir Abu Du’a is in control of both AQI and al-Nusra. Du’a also issues strategic guidance to al-Nusra’s emir, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and tasked him to begin operations in Syria,” the State Department said.

Benotman says that while Abu Du’a still has significant influence over al-Nusra, the key player in the group is al-Jawlani, a veteran Syrian jihadist who he says appears to have almost certainly been a former close associate of al-Zarqawi.

Al-Jawlani’s “leadership is uncontested because of his experience in Iraq,” the Quilliam Foundation report found. According to Benotman, al-Jawlani has taken painstaking measures not to reveal his real identity – including wearing a mask to meetings with some of al-Nusra’s senior operatives. He was also masked when al-Nusra released a video in January 2012 to announce its formation.

AQI had built up an infrastructure in Syria, establishing safe-houses in Syria from which thousands of volunteers – including many Syrians – traveled to fight in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi’s Syrian commanders were also the key channel for financial contributions from the Saudi and Gulf region.

Nada Bakos, a former CIA agent who for several years was the chief targeting officer tracking al-Zarqawi, told CNN that from the early days Syrians were amongst the inner circle of his network. “Some of these commanders are probably now part of al-Nusra,” she said.

One Syrian among the inner circle of AQI was Sulayman Khalid Darwish. He’s been reported killed in Iraq, but intelligence sources tell CNN his fate remains uncertain, raising the possibility he may now be playing a leadership role in al-Nusra.

According to Benotman, the ultimate aim of al-Nusra is the creation of an Islamic State in Syria and the Levant. To begin with, it set about recruiting fighters and training them, collecting weapons and creating safe havens.

The group suffered a severe setback in April 2012 after the arrest of an operative led to a significant number of members being detained in Damascus, but the group subsequently rebuilt its operations, placing greater emphasis on operational security, Benotman told CNN.

One precaution al-Nusra has taken is communicating through messengers rather than electronically, according to Benotman. “Their operational security is some of the best I’ve ever seen,” he told CNN.

In addition, al-Nusra is “very selective about initiating new members, requiring “tezkiyya,” or personal assurance, from two commanders on the front line stating that the recruit has the necessary skills, religious commitment and attitude to join the group,” the Quilliam study says.

From clandestine cells to insurgency

According to the U.S State Department, al-Nusra has claimed responsibility for nearly 600 attacks – “ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr.”

Benotman says the group has also carried out executions of media professionals and assassinations of military officers and members of the pro-al-Assad Shabiha militia.

Al-Nusra also focuses on taking control of towns near major highways to control movement; it controls the highway between Aleppo and Hasakah, an important route to Iraq, according to the Quilliam report.

So far the group has only claimed one attack on Syrian government planes and helicopters which “would seem to demonstrate a lack of man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADs), consistent with the international effort to keep these weapons out of jihadist hands,” according to the report.

Last month al-Nusra launched two of its most ambitious operations to date. On December 10, the group occupied parts of a military base near Aleppo and two days later claimed responsibility for a coordinated suicide and car bomb attack on the heavily guarded Interior Ministry in the capital.

Al-Nusra’s signature tactic, like that of AQI, is using large car and truck bombs driven by suicide bombers. The group has launched several such attacks against security installations in Damascus and Aleppo, sometimes as part of a coordinated assault involving gunmen.

Benotman says that last Summer al-Nusra launched a recruitment drive for suicide bombers and began stockpiling trucks and explosives. He says that weapons shortages among rebel groups means that al-Nusra’s campaign of suicide bombings has allowed it to punch above its weight.

Last week al-Nusra demonstrated the lethality of a new tactic – driverless car bombs operated by remote control, Benotman told CNN. He says the technology was used to destroy a gate at an airbase in Idlib and will raise fears that it could one day be used in an attack in the West.

If al-Nusra’s fighting strength is some 5,000 members, as the Quilliam report estimates, that would be comparable to U.S. government estimates of AQI at the peak of the Iraq insurgency. But rebel commanders say that the group makes up less than 10% of the brigades fighting the regime.

While al-Nusra is mainly made up of Syrians, it includes a significant number of fighters from other Arab countries. In recent months a growing number have arrived from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but Iraqis and Jordanians constitute the majority of foreign fighters.

Cooperation with other rebels

In recent months, videos featuring rebels fighting in Syria have increasingly featured joint-operations between al-Nusra and other rebel groups.

According to the Quilliam Foundation report, al-Nusra often cooperates with other jihadist and Islamist groups such as Sukour al-Sham, which has several thousand fighters, and even with the Free Syrian Army, in a number of strategic battles, though joint operations between these two groups have not been widespread.

According to Benotman, a significant number of Jihadists fighting with other rebel outfits are wary of al Qaeda’s hard-line ideology, but al-Nusra has sought to allay concerns by keeping its brand separate from al Qaeda, avoiding targeting civilians, and refraining from spelling out its true agenda.

“Preserving good relations with the other groups and treating them well and turning a blind eye to their mistakes is the foundation in dealing with the other groups, as long as they don’t change,” al-Nusra leader Mohammed al-Jawlani said in a December audio tape, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group.

Al-Nusra and nine other local Jihadist brigades announced last month they were forming a regional unified command structure called the Mujahideen Shura Council in Deir el-Zour.

Yet according to Benotman’s report, al-Nusra has not yet formed any such coalitions with larger Islamist rebel outfits such as Ansar al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham, and the Deir Ezzor Revolutionary Council, three groups which previously joined together to form the “Liberation Front.”

A counterproductive designation?

According to the Quilliam study, “the designation (by the U.S.) of al-Nusra as a terrorist organization has only served to reinforce jihadist support for the group.

Nada Bakos, the former CIA agent agreed, telling CNN the designation may elevate al-Nusra’s status amongst Jihadists worldwide, increasing funding and recruitment for the group.

Benotman’s study describes relations between al-Nusra and the FSA as mixed, with both realizing they need each other in the short term to topple al-Assad.

“Some FSA brigades threaten to work with al-Nusra if the West does not provide enough weapons while others see al-Nusra as trying to exploit the revolution for their own ends, instead of working for the good of the country. Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army are wary of one another, as they are already vying for popularity amongst the population,” Quilliam says.

Strategy

Bakos, the former CIA official says AQI and al-Nusra are likely replicating the flexible, decentralized, and resilient external operations networks established by al-Zarqawi in the region, and that makes them a force to be reckoned with. Benotman says the al-Zarqawi networks never really went away.

Analysts believe al-Nusra’s hostility to the West could create an “over-the-horizon” threat to the United States and its allies if the group is able to secure a foothold in Syria and across the Levant.

In such a scenario al Qaeda aligned groups would be operating within touching distance of borders of Israel, improving their potential to launch a direct attack against the country, long a key proclaimed objective of the terrorist network’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Quilliam Foundation report is sobering reading at a time when increasing sectarian tension and regime brutality in Syria are playing into al-Nusra’s hands.

Benotman believes al-Nusra doesn’t want a quick end to the al-Assad regime.

“The longer the conflict goes on, the stronger they will get,” he told CNN.

Tara is is obvious to most of us you have a personal issue with Assad. You’ve talked of knowing Asma’s cousins. You rant about Assad constantly (going on four years now?). Whatever your personal issue is with Bashar and his lovely wife we wish you would stick to facts here and leave out the personal vendettas. You no longer are in Syria. More than likely you will never return to Syria. Move on with your life. That’s the best advice anyone can give you. It isn’t healthy to obsess over a man as you do.

ZOO is up with the snowblowers in Central Time Zone, I see, and beggars the question soundly:

The question to ask: who decides which side detains the ‘moral truth’?

You do, ZOO, every day, and in every way, from evulizing whole nations and peoples, to withering contempt for “your terrorist friends.”

You decide, and you insist that your decision trumps all others.

TARA can condemn a bombing by Al Nusra (who do not shy away from trumpeting even their most senseless ‘collateral’ slaughter of passersby) — while making the essential point that one cannot generalize so widely that shades of difference, colour and tone are reduced to Black. FSA == Terror. That was JAD’s madness. To use invective and pretend one hasn’t, then that it is deserved, and then pretend that this is not a moral judgement.

At least JAD owned up to his stumbles at times, up to the time when his emotions broke his connection here, and his unreasoning paranoia took him away from us.

It is shoddy argumentation, unproductive –compounded by the silence on any mention of Government atrocities from Barrel bombs to torture in detention and a history of paranoid preventive attacks on ‘suspects’ — you clearly dissembled to us here even when you claimed you had at some point mentioned Assad ‘mistakes’ but stopped for mumble mutter fumble reason. I pointed out your dissembling and you waved it away. Incredible. When you drop the ball, we hear it bounce, and you look us in the face and say you heard nothing, that the ball never left your hands.

Why further add to this untruth by pretending you do not judge?

This takes you into deep into discussion without a moral compass — pretending your path is true, when others can see you clearly dodging, weaving, doubling back. It demeans your humanity, ZOO, to deny your ‘mistakes’ …

With so many brains and a fondness for judging the emotional state of folks you cannot possibly diagnose, you know this. It’s painful to see attempts at conciliation or compromise founder. What is your payoff for this?

TARA cares about you, ZOO, cares enough to engage and correct where she finds you wrong; you do not have to take the low road, and pretend there is no mud clogging your hobnails.

You are not Assad. You are human, humans make mistakes, acknowledge them, and move on.

____

I have said these things in so many ways. I do not hate you or wish you harm, ZOO. I want to understand your connection to Syria and help lessen your distress.

Please be a man, a big man, not a stone-heart.

Is there someone watching you, ZOO, someone who you fear, someone who will hurt you if you show weakness?

We do not know you, whatever our (often meanspirited) teasing. Does someone know you and monitor you for compliance?

If so, this is much more tragic than that you choose not to show your greatest humanity.

Reve,

Let me give you a word of advise.

While I care about Zoo’s opinion, I do not care about yours. Stay out of the discussion. I am really not interested in having a discussion with you.

This is the way it is. Could it be more clear?

I am saying this against my “nice” nature. But I hate to continue to ignore you while you continue to address me.

REVENIRE, your offensive self-absoption knows no bounds.

Syria is TARA’s homeland, her heart, and her hope. Assad has harmed her country.

You know she is out of Syria because she told you, openly.

You are using her self-honesty to degrade and abuse her personally, while you conceal your own attachment to Syria.

I will ask you once:

— Are you Syrian? What right do you arrogate to yourself to demonize and demean TARA for things publicly shared, while you carefully conceal these same things?

Do you not understand how this might feel were it turned against you? Do you not have any empathy? Was it beaten out of you? Did someone hurt you and the only protection you feel you can count on is to go with the strongest and most fearsome power in the world?

It’s okay to admit confusion, error, pain and hurt, and to tell real stories that haunt and perplex. Labelling TARA as a psychological case is so far off the mat of basic good behaviour that you make yourself seem small, frightened and insecure.

It takes a strong, confident man who can share without fear. Only weak people hide in the shadows and throw stones at the people in the light.

I feel so terribly, terribly sorry for where you are, trapped in anonymity, taking advantage of others’ honesty to raise yourself up.

It doesn’t work that way. The result is shame, if you have a heart, it can eat you alive.

I don’t care about your slurs against me, because I have heard worse ones. They have effect but to help me feel pity for you. I can care about your suffering if you are Syrian or an exile or alone in a foreign land with expectations to go with the bullies.

If you are a real person, with a real heartfelt connection to Syria, I would take ten of you to that weak, lazy poseur Wim. Please put the dukes down. No one can hurt you here.

More on the subject of foreign and domestic Islamist terrorists, this time it is from a prominent news reporter at CNN:
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/08/analysis-study-shows-rise-of-al-qaeda-affiliate-in-syria/?hpt=wo_c1
(I am afraid that many of you are still unable to understand the magnitude of this explosive subject, those terrorists are breathing life into an almost lifeless regime, Obama’s next CIA chief will definitely jump on this wagon)

I really doubt an over the hill punk rocker who trolls web forums looking for arguments knows who is, and who isn’t, a Syrian.

Bill, out of love for my fellow man, I suggest if you really want to know who everyone is go back to being moderator here and then you can get all of our IPs. Then all that would be left is guessing our true nationalities and religions. I heard American state fairs often have people who guess weight and age for a little prize – like a stuffed Salafist monkey.

Tara has self-identified herself and offered no proof at all of who she is. For all I know she’s Victoria Nuland or Susan Rice.

Don’t give me your pity play Bill. When you pity the dead murdered by your terrorist friends and you might get a better response from me but so far you are very, very selective with your tears.

You troll people Bill. I’ve seen you do it. You go on obsessive rants. Maybe too many wild “three chord nights” were in your past. I have no idea. I do know you cry out for attention and remind me of the stereotypical seven year old with his hand up for teacher. You stroke terrorist for fun and laughs. That’s fine with me. As I said everyone needs hobbies. It would not be my choice of hobby but as long as you remain chained to a keyboard I feel Vancouver is a bit safer. Maybe you will grow a Salafist beard and take off for Homs but I doubt it given your past.

Tara is obsessive about Assad to the point of being hysterical. I find the pathology fascinating.

Is that okay? If not file your complaint in the same box you put the others in. I am sure you will get the same response.

Tara

Forget my pseudo psychological analysis, just re-read your posts about Bashar al Assad, constantly insulting him, calling him names, repeatedly wishing him death in suffering and all the “good’ words you have about his wife Asma.

If this is not manifestation of an obsessive hatred, I don’t know what it is..

Just a small sample of the obsessive hatred and bile vomited up by our self-proclaimed Syrian expat Tara.

This is called free speech “revolutionaries” and if you don’t like free speech move to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, etc.

Some like to dish it out but can’t take it.

===

January 2011
Anti-Iranian racism
304. TARA said:
Pirouz

In regard to number 1, Syrians do not believe the 5 kidnapped Iranians were actually engineers. They probably were IRG killing women and children. I am surprised that you and JNA insist to use the picture as an evidence to the contrary. If the picture matches the picture of the alleged engineers, then it is a proof they aren’t engineers but rather Iranian terrorists.

Also, Pirouz, could you do your country men and women a favor and leave a word in the Iranian mission in the US to spread the word to the Iranian people to stay home and not to pursue religious pilgrimage in Syria for the time being. Everyone says Syria is at the brink of civil war. I say Syria is already in civil war (the people against the regime) so people should practice religion in their home for the time being. If a civil war ignited in KSA, i would never think to visit Mecca. I give you my word Allah would understand. Really!

January 2011
Pathological obsession with Asma and her children to the point of wishing them dead (or worse)
492. TARA said:
Bashar sending Asma and the kids abroad?
Too good to be true?

February 2011
Hatred of people who support the legitimate Syrian government
4. TARA said:
What is the going rate for regime propagandists? I have couple friends looking for a buck or two in blood money.

February 2011
Threatening government supporters
67. TARA said:
A picture is worth thousand words.

https://mobile.twitter.com/#!/javierespinosa2/status/173727443809615873?photo=1

Regime supporters: enjoy for now…

Zoo,

Of course you do not know what it is. You kept refusing to watch. You closed your eyes and kept your head so long under the sand under a pretext of a sensitive soul that can’t watch indecency. I do have a sensitive soul too but I watched what you refused to watch and I identified with these people and therefore it became up close and personal. Yes, it is extreme hatred of the murderer who killed 60,000 Syrians and I do not deny it. He is squarely responsible and I blame none other than this retard Batta al Assad of yours.

And to play a Dr. Phill just as you did, your portraying this as a personal family thing is either an unconscious attempt to silence my voice or unconscious cry to silence your own consciounce. So which one is it Zoo?

WSS

Please keep me out your “analysis” and stick to analyze the situation in Syria. There is much more there that trying to know who I am and trying to give me and others “moral” advices.
What I am, what I believe and whom I chose to communicate with or ignore is none of your business.
Your subtle personal questions are making you a very suspicious person, especially as you have been collecting information about the location of the SC commenters when you were a moderator and you are now exposing them publicly, thus breaking the confidentiality that J.L gave you.
By doing that, you showed that you are a very untrustworthy and dangerous person.

I don’t like people who cheat and betray people’s trust, give moral advices and are the first ones to break them.
I don’t care if you Canadian or a Pigmee, just stay out of my way.

WSS the Canadian jihadi

WSS supports terrorism – his posts are littered with pro-terrorist rants. He is hardly in a position to give moral advice to anyone. He fights windmills on the Internet.

Anyone with an ounce of morality could never support al-Nusra or their FSA allies (and the FSA was never an army but a loose collection of ‘brigades’ that rob, kidnap and murder civilians).

I had no idea WSS was collecting people’s personal information while he was a moderator here. He seems quite delirious to find out the location of each poster. I note his attacks on people using the Twitter platform. He went at Sharmine the other day but today cries fouls when someone takes on one of his favorite terrorists. He seems a bit like a fascist to me deriding all those who don’t share his love of terrorism as “nuts” wearing Tin Foil Hats. WSS pants after the Lawrence of Arabia types with an almost sexual fervor.

He is an old man. Search him on Google and get ready for a laugh. The days of Johnny Rotten are long gone – thirty years gone. Some never moved on. I can imagine a safety pin in Bill’s mouth.

He reminds me of a cannibal.

Gawds save us from the repulsive Franklin Lamb, a guest of the Syrian government — at this juncture — to accept a commission to report via RT/PressTV on the shameful imaginary actions of ‘The Americans’ in Yarmouk.

Those who inhabit and take refuge there and suffer from the split in the camp, or who were battered to death by the crazy shelling before the present), did they ask for a Franklin Lamb to come shine a light?

I know he has been writing his own script for his charades, but the payoff for him is the same as Sharmine’s inclusion in the Resistance Absolves All club.

America’s Leviathan has and should attract scorn and the most searching and relentless criticism of its arrogance and hypocrisy and contempt for its own principles and founding documents (the list goes back and forth over thousands of shameful incidents that any of us could list) in the middle. There are principled folks who do this work honorably, but who draw the line at praising murderous terrorists on one hand, while demonizing murderous terrorists on the other — and would never go to the lengths of invention as this man.

Even Angy Arab, no friend of the Syrian revolution “fake revolution” — and a friend to Sharmine Narwani, ideologue Amal Sa’ad Ghorayeb, and many if not all other anti-FSA activists in the resistance media — is revolted by this man.

How much lower will you scrape, ZOO?

I rather enjoy Amal Sa’ad Ghorayeb:

“Just watched Assad’s speech on Mayadeen and an opposition figure’s response to it. We can summarize the crisis as follows: on the one hand we have a leader who engages in historical analysis and dissects the political situation and its causes based on indisputable facts and basic reason. A leader who makes critical nuances between self-defense and a military solution; nuances between a state sponsored amnesty and real national reconciliation; nuances between foreign diktat and advice. A leader who deconstructs the concept of revolution as one that requires thought, leadership and popular domestic support, in his bid to prove through logical inference that the current uprising meets none of these criteria. A leader who conceptualizes the concept of ‘transition’ as one from instability to stability rather than from statehood to foreign occupation and destruction of the state. A leader who has proposed a clear outline for a solution that requires, as the precondition for its fulfillment, an end to the terrorist attacks that threaten to destroy Syria. A leader who refuses to negotiate with ‘puppets’ while recognizing the need to reach an understanding with their foreign ‘masters’.
And on the other side we have an opposition which says: NO. Assad must go.
Such is the nature of the current crisis.”

In fairness to WSS, I do share his opinion of the filthy Glenn Beck

مخابرات مطار بيروت : تصطاد ” عضو الائتلاف السوري” وحقيبته مليئة بالأجهزة عبر الأقمار الأصطناعية

يحتجز الجيش اللبناني خليل الحاج صالح عضو في الأمانة العامة للمجلس الوطني السوري، منذ وصوله إلى مطار رفيق الحريريالدولي ببيروت مساء يوم السبت الماضي.

وقالت مصادر أمنية : إن “الشرطة العسكرية تواصل تحقيقاتها مع الموقوف بإشراف مفوض الحكومة لدى المحكمة العسكرية القاضي صقر صقر”، وأنه بناء على التحقيقات، وبعد فحص الأجهزة المختلفة التي كانت معه، سيتم اتخاذ القرار المناسب فإما يُحال إلى المحكمة إذا ما تأكد أن ما قام به جرم يطال أمن الدولة أو يتم إخلاء سبيله.
وكانت الوكالة الوطنية اللبنانية للإعلام قد ذكرت أن السلطات الإستخبارية في مطار بيروت ضبطت ثلاثة أجهزة اتصال إنترنت عبر الأقمار الاصطناعية وهواتف عبر الأقمار خاصة لإستعمالات مختلفة، في حقيبة صالح، فتم توقيفه، وأمر مفوض الحكومة لدى المحكمة العسكرية بتسليمه مع المضبوطات إلى الشرطة العسكرية.
وقد نفى سمير نشار عضو الأمانة العامة للائتلاف السوري وعضو المكتب التنفيذي في المجلس الوطني أن يكون صالح قد حمل أيًّا من الأجهزة الممنوعة، مؤكدًا أنه كان يحمل عددًا من الهواتف و أجهزة الكمبيوتر الجديدة التي تم شراؤها من تركيا لنشطاء سوريين، باعتبار أن أسعارها أفضل هناك مما هي في لبنان.

OMG!

How outrageous!
A Syrian hates, insults and wishes ill will towards Assad!

And of course, Assad’s horror/slaughter fest is quite normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Tara

I don’t want to go back into that episode again.
You know better what you are and what you feel about your family and the level of influence it has on your feelings about Bashar al Assad and his family than I do.

WSS

Are you the powerless and frustrated ex-moderator of that blog?

How lower can you go?

If WSS was abusing his moderator position here and handing over people’s personal information to terrorist sympathizers why is he allowed here at all? He could continue his rants against Syria from dozens of locations.

Can Canadians support terrorism to this extent? Isn’t that a crime in Canada? Did Bill ever imagine someone could get hurt if their personal info was revealed and a crazed jihadi goes nuts? What’s wrong with WSS?

How would WSS know Tara was Syrian? She said she is on the East Coast of the USA and last time I checked the East Coast was not part of Syria.

Zoo,

Thank you for your decent closure. That subject is now closed.

The proud Syrian Army

If the international community can’t agree on a way to stop the fighting, at least they should help the refugees who are the direct consequences of their indecision.

UN says it can’t feed 1m hungry Syrians
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=264491

The World Food Program yesterday said it is unable to help 1 million Syrians who are going hungry. This month, the agency aims to help 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Syrians that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent says need it, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said.

TARA has revealed quite a lot of information about herself and her background over many months here. REVENIRE is showing again that he hasn’t been following SC, but has suddenly appeared here to do a job.

TARA, WSS, MJABALI and many others here on both sides of the fence come across as authentic people with individual feelings and opinions – in striking contrast to some pro-Assadist “operators” who plague this forum and work to dominate it and distract from full discussion.

Theses operators seem to be doing it in relays and bursts. When one flags or fades another automatically springs up.

One of the hallmarks of the operators is a chilling lack of concern for the what is actually happening to Syrians and Syria.

Contributor TARA has revealed quite a lot of information about herself and her background over many months here. REVENIRE is showing again that he hasn’t been following SC, but has suddenly appeared here to play a role.

TARA, WSS, MJABALI and many others here on both sides of the fence come across as authentic people with individual feelings and opinions – in striking contrast to some pro-Assadist “operators” who plague this forum and work to dominate it and distract from full discussion.

Theses operators seem to be doing it in relays and bursts. When one flags or fades another automatically springs up.

One of the hallmarks of the operators is a chilling lack of concern for the what is actually happening to Syrians and Syria.

The speech reminds me of another “historical” speech by yet another “supreme leader” the Brother Head of The Revolution the late Qaddafi!
Let’s remember Qaddafi’s speech contents:

* Dismissing the opponents as subhuman and unworthy of respect rodents “rats”…incidentally speaking rats are the second most numerous mammal on earth after …you guessed it Mice!

* Dismissing their opponents as Al-Qaeda soldiers as if this long-disbanded group of monkeys that were exterminated in all its organized training camps, had its senior leadership killed, and its finances cut off was still able to orchestrate revolutions and overthrow powerful,popular, and long-standing regimes supported by millions of loving citizens!

* Dismissing the opponents as foreign agents, imperialists, and zionists??!!

* Portraying himself as a hero resisting the imperial forces and impeding their agenda of world hegemony

* Vowing to use force not dialogue to confront the opponents with the wonderful Zanga Zanga war cry

Assad pretty much repeated all of Qaddafi’s mistakes.

The crisis in Syria is still by large a Syrian-Syrian conflict between a large number of Syrians who want an end of the regime and others who want it to remain in power and perpetuate their benefits from their alliance with the regime hierachy.
Both the regime and the opposition reject talks with one another,both insist on disarming the other, both want power, and both have failed Syria and Syrians..22 months, 60,000 martyrs, millions who suffered, billions of economic losses.
Is power really THAT important?

254 MOSSIE

“handing over people’s personal information to terrorist sympathizers”

If I knew your address, Mossie, I’d turn you in, too. Just to watch you die.

“why is he allowed here at all?”

For the same reason you are. Because he’s an idiot.

http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2011/06/20/assad-cartoon.jpg

Don’t know whether or not this artcle has been linked here yet.

Choice: ‘Somalia-ization’ of Syria Or a Political Settlement

“The Syrian opposition, for its part, will see a rising antagonism between its various factions. All attempts to unite them under the banner of the National Coalition have failed. One of these attempts, for example, was disclosed by a prominent Syrian dissident. He revealed that several senior Saudi officials, including several princes, personally demanded that members of the opposition join the coalition in exchange for half a million dollars and a monthly stipend of $10,000 per person.”

Helfaya bakery

“Some signs of the dissension, for example, include the fact that several members of the opposition have deliberately discredited the narrative of a massacre at the Helfaya bakery in the Hama countryside. One confirmed that, in the area that was bombed, no bakery even existed to begin with. He also revealed that of the 47 who were killed, 40 of them were either members of Jabhat al-Nusrah or their supporters. The rest of the bodies were unidentified. That means that the issue ultimately goes back to the question of foreign fighters. He says that they were bombed by the army in response to the targeting of one of their bases. The foreign fighters were the ones were the ones who threw bread upon the dead in order to say the victims were massacred while simply trying to get their daily bread.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/01/continuing-conflict-threatens-somalia-ization-of-syria.html#ixzz2HPhnuOiq

Is the way to change the regime the destruction of Syria?
Is the way to protect the regime the destruction of Syria?
Can Syrians post-regime or with it in case it emerges victorious out of this mess become the wonderful,pluralist,generous people they were? Will they forget their massacered childern in the name of reconciliation?
Both Shishakli and Qwatli resigned from office in far less dire situations would Batta reason?

“If the international community can’t agree on a way to stop the fighting, at least they should help the refugees who are the direct consequences of their indecision.”

Another example from the horse’s mouth ZOO that the regime is illegitimate. It is the responsibility of the so called legitimate government to do everything to supply food to its citizens. It is actually bombing bread lines and bakeries and fuel and petrol stations and is also practicing a scorched earth policy as we see in Rastan and in Homs and the suburbs of Damascus.

This is an illegitimate regime with a president that ascended the throne in 2001 in an illegal move even by the very flawed constitution of that time.

The most glaring example is the use of force after the so called abrogation of the state of emergency. In a state where there is a rule of law, the regime cannot use force as it does now.
If we are at war, then declare war and re instate the state of emergency if not then the people have to decide on the use of force not some nitwit criminal.

Now, some are calling for an end to violence, and I agree it needs to end, but the first step is the complete return of the armed forces to their barracks and the return of the refugees to their homes and the full access of the country to the humanitarian organisations and free press and UN monitors in their thousands.

I do not think any other measure is acceptable.

ZOO #257 what’s wrong with giving the true story? The international agencies can’t help many desperate Syrian refugees because they are denied access – not because they are unwilling to, as your post wrongly suggests.

Story: Food aid can’t reach 1 million Syrians, says UN agency

Lack of security, access to port are major barriers to delivering food shipments

EXCERPT:

The United Nations’ World Food Programme said Tuesday it is unable to help 1 million Syrians who are going hungry.

This month, the agency aims to help 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Syrians that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent says need it, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said.

The lack of security and the agency’s inability to use the Syrian port of Tartous for its shipment means that a large number of people in the some of the country’s hardest hit areas will not get help, she said.

“Our main partner, the Red Cross, is overstretched and has no more capacity to expand further,” Byrs said.

She also said that the agency has temporarily pulled its staff out of its offices in the Syrian cities of Homs, Aleppo, Tartous and Qamisly due to the rising dangers in those areas.

But in December, WFP was able to reach for the first time in many months some hard-to-reach areas near the Turkish border, she said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/08/syria-food-aid-un-world-food-programme.html

David Ignatius at the Wash.Post writes about a new initiative to reassure alawites,among others, who fear indiscriminate revenge if the regime falls (full article available at web site):

The transition process would begin with identification of 100 regime insiders whose defection could accelerate Assad’s fall. Some of these Assad supporters might be offered partial amnesty if they agreed to cooperate. The sooner they defected, the more leverage they might have under a future government. As part of the political transition, a compensation fund would be created to aid victims of the war.
Alawites who aren’t in the inner circle would be offered “safe passage,” explains a Syrian Support Group memo outlining the plan. “Our intelligence reports show that many Alawites are standing with Assad for their own survival, because of misunderstanding of (opposition) plans for post-Assad transitional justice system. Many feel they will be executed wholesale. … This fact is helping Assad militarize the whole sect in a life and death fight (for) Damascus, with potential mass destruction of Damascus and gross loss of life.”
Unless Alawite fears about communal survival are addressed directly, “this issue will not be solved necessarily by Assad leaving power, and will create a major risk for Syria’s future stability in years to come,” the Syrian Support Group memo warns.

A person instructing criminals to kill for the asma the call girl gets upset if she was ridiculed in someone else’s words… we can only conclude that obsession runs very deep.

Assad is doing the world a favor.

Sure, by ensuring that he does not survive to screw up another place, not even the jail cell we have initially prepared for him and his mafia gang.

Yo Schmuck, it is not personal vendetta any more, it is history and humanity that now have vendetta with your prethident and his call-girl wife you want to kill for.

Preventing others from insulting the fool prethident is unfair to him, only schmucks would want to deprive him what is naturally his after all his hard work to earn the contempt and disgust he so rightfully acquired as the most banal,asinine, impertinent، impudent،insolent، flippant، dumb person living in Syria today.

Russia and US enter bartering phase over Syria

08/01/2013
By Michel Abu Najm
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32477
…
Washington does not want to see the collapse of Syria’s military or security apparatus, as occurred in Iraq following the 2003 US invasion. On the other hand, nor do the Americans want to see Syria following the Afghanistan scenario where the collapse of the Talban regime did not lead to the establishment of an independent regime despite the presence of international forces in the country for more than 11 years. Finally, Washington also does not want to find itself militarily embroiled once more in the Middle East.

On the other hand, diplomatic sources involved in the Syrian file believe that Washington has concluded that it must review its regional priorities, and “modify its approach”, as well as the manner it is dealing with Moscow. According to more than one source, Washington believes that cooperation with Moscow represents a “necessity” and it may therefore be willing to deal with the Russians over the Syrian file in return for Russian cooperation on the Iranian nuclear file.
…
In view of these developments, identical sources confirmed that we have now entered the “bartering phase”, particularly after Moscow has confirmed that it must be engaged with to reach a solution regarding the Syrian file and that it remains a “major player” on the political and diplomatic scene. Following this, the Russians will perhaps take the decision to reveal their cards and identify their demands regarding accepting a political settlement in Syria.

Therefore, those primarily concerned with the Syrian file – namely the al-Assad regime, the opposition and the involved regional parties such as Iran, Turkey and Arab states – are closely monitoring what results Moscow and Washington can achieve in this regard, and which party will offer the greater concessions. It is likely that President al-Assad will have pre-empted this move and selected his conditions for leaving power, with the negotiations then beginning from this point.

GHUFRAN #263,

That is an excellent initiative you mention and I hope it gets taken seriously by those with the power to do something about it.

But as usual, you skip the source, so here it is. It’s worth reading in full for more details of what’s recommended:

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130107/COLUMNIST/301079995/2127?Title=Ignatius-Syrian-rebels-transition-plan-deserves-support

tara is a fake, pretender.
it is a jew keyboarding from tel aviv or brooklyn.

president assad, when the jewish west backs off because of its inability to beat syrians fighting for their country, history, culture and begins to smile, speak softly, and wants a ‘peaceful’ resolution,

be firm, do not let up, do not relax, do not trust.

never, never trust the west.

SYRIAN HAMSTER #264

You understate Syria-hater Bashar Assad’s achievements.

He now has GLOBAL contempt and disgust and over 100 nations erasing his name from their official registers.

I love your phrase “it is history and humanity that now have a vendetta with [Assad]”

#262 Syrialover

Bashar al Assad officially offered a detailed plan to stop the violence that would allow the refugees to go back to their homes safely. What did the opposition replied? “No” ,and did they come with their own plan? “No”

They are probably waiting for their masters to tell them what is the alternative plan. As the USA and Russia are now obliged to work together on a new way out, the opposition tenor have nothing to say that whine and repeat their usual mantra: “Not with Bashar al Assad”

@267 Mixing KKK, Nazi, skinhead ideology with athadithm is not a hard feat, most idiots can do that…

And by the way, congratulation on your new calculator, you now can use this blog.

“@267 Mixing KKK, Nazi, skinhead ideology with athadithm is not a hard feat, most idiots can do that…”

Says the guy who supports Takfiri terrorists who behead civilians.

I believe what 5 DANCING SHLOMOS said about Tara.

Far too many fakes “Gay Girl from Damascus” frauds like Amal Hanano are playing online games with the Syrian people.

Don’t trust the lies!

Er, ZOO #129, a lot of the refugees don’t have homes to go back to. Assad’s airforce has seen to that.

And did this pseudo “plan” of Assad’s include full and free and protected access for western aid agencies and charities?

Because there’s a baffling lack of humanitarian assistance coming from Russia and Iran, who have poured so much anti-humanitarian stuff into Syria.

267 SHLOMO

“tara is a fake, a jew keyboarding from tel aviv”

Exactly, Shloie, she’s a Jew. The minute Tara logged into SC, I thought to myself, “That woman is no Syrian.” And let me count the ways. A real Syrian would have no compassion for the poor or the destitute or the oppressed. A real Syrian wouldn’t care about the hungry or those without clothing or medical attention. In short, Tara lacks that cruel predator’s demeanor that is the signature feature of a true Syrian Assadist.

You’re right, Shlomo, Tara’s a Jew!

ZOO you are either confused or disingeneous. He did not offer anything but surrender of the opposition to his regime; he did not offer to stop any violence nor any accountability for the crimes nor a national unity government. He said he refuses to talk to puppets only their masters.

Syrialover #266

I posted that article on 5th January

/blog/?p=17307#comment-341876

And J.L posted it too

I understand you skip my posts, are you skipping Joshua’s post too?

My view is that Russia wants to play big power.

It is doing a reverse Iraq in Syria. When the US can go in and remove a regime and dispose of it in less than 6 weeks and do so after also fighting in Afghanistan, Russia thinks that it can play superpower by “preventing” regime change in Syria.

Once again the same delusion that existed in the mind of the criminal Bush/Cheney admnistration is now the case of the Putin/Laughvrov duo.

The Russians have no plan except to keep the regime structure intact with or without the prethident.

The reality is that the regime structure is no longer standing. You have a warlord that has airplanes and artillery and few troops to control the country.

Let us see what Laughvrov can deliver in Dublin.

Observer

“He said he refuses to talk to puppets only their masters.”

I guess you prefer to talk to puppets..

Stranger things have happened. Look at all the reports of regime atrocities. Did you notice that when I asked for one video proving Syrian authorities shooting at unarmed civilians not one single video could be provided. All that was posted was the same tired old FSA propaganda we see being churned daily out by people who are not even Syrian!

I will not spare you, ZOO. Your charges are false and malicious.

It doesn’t matter who you are, I explained that to you. And anything I have written about you here has nothing to do with whatever I supposedly learned as Moderator; it was purely speculative — a deliberate provocation. The gibe about Montreal is a goad based solely on another poster’s taunt about your time zone.

The reason for this is clear: you use freely given personal information to abuse interlocutors from anonymity; here, in this thread, it persists. Each time you do something like tell us about e.g. TARA’s “real” motives and “real” psychology — as if she was LYING about her honest admissions, this nullifies your perfectly unremarkable ‘right’ to be absolutely anonymous. You remain anonymous entirely.

Anybody can speculate or guess or whine about the ‘real’ motivations derived from identity. But to insist that this speculation is knowledge about the other person is contemptible. Remember your demands for ‘video proof’ …

Should you agree that speculating about ‘real’ motivations is not knowledge, I would never challenge your right to be absolutely anonymous.

Turn the tables — lets see if it makes sense.

ZOE is, let’s say, a professional in America, born in Syria, married with kids, and says so. TORA is anonymous. One day she says to ZOE, you are hiding something, I know this, it’s incontestable because of what you have told me about yourself. You are lying about your aspects of your identity, ZOE. I know what you really are.

ZOE says, nope, wrong, sorry, but what about you? who are you?

TORA bristles and says: you have no right to an answer. How dare you!?

Which one shows contemptible arrogance, ZOE or TORA? Who is tending to argue through intimidation and a menacing tone?

++++++++++++

Every time you speculate maliciously on TARA, ZOO, I will do the same to you — fully explaining here that I am just ‘conjecturing,’ acknowledging now that I know nothing about you. And you will deserve that malicious speculation most richly.

Don’t try to intimidate me with fabulous charges. It doesn’t work.

I shall pass your public accusation on to Joshua Landis, if you have not already done so. He could care less about these commentaries, me or you, anyone, the whole hassle.

He responded to the last demented backstage campaign, by shutting down the last moderator and let us go wild — I think to avoid giving one more moment to crap from a bunch of wahoos, as the slide toward darkness in Syria deepened. The wisdom of that is evident.

Now, why not simply get back to telling instructing TARA and her terrorist friends how they have destroyed your country, whatever the fuck that is.

If slagging off TARA doesn’t seem to be getting you off, recruit young REVENIRE (I have not a frigging clue where or what REVENIRE is, having taken the Pacific Time Zone BS from whoever brought up yours, ZOO — as if one can calculate timezones from datestamps reliably).

If he is Canadian, which I doubt very much, I am sure he was sent in a box from some ungrateful parent far far from these shores.

(I apologize to all who find this kind of exchange pointless and depressing. Like this kind of squabbling has any import at all while Syria descends further into torment.)

@ 278.

Oh I know this game. It’s the one where people post videos of protesters getting shot, and in turn you will insist that no, they’re in fact not being shot by the military, because you can’t see the protesters and shooting security at once in the same video frame. When the security has civilian clothes, you will claim it’s not shabiha at all, because it’s wearing civilian clothes. You will complain that the deaths have been faked, or that they’re carrying the old flag, and thus claim they’re actually with the regime, even though one of them is wearing Salafi clothes. So on and so on ad nauseam.

One video that struck me as really poignant was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnqiQICRD8w

And here’s another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVxaXHEidOk&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Nevermind it’s all been corroborated with witnesses – I bet the thousands of witnesses are lying too! Best just rely on SANA for all our informations.

LOL Bill “the Canadian Cannibal” hits you in the mouth with a jihadi Scud missile and then says “sorry but they forced me to do it” and continues his crazy “Gay Girl from Damascus” rant.

I can guarantee you that very few would openly back terrorists if their real names and identities were laid bare. They’d be out of a job very fast. People don’t want to work with hatchet men for al-Nusra.

Of special note is Bill’s “this is all so silly as Syria descends” but wasn’t punk rock silly as African genocide took hold back in 1977?

Always the superior above-it-all attitude of smug self-abuse.

It’s sickening.

@ 280. Al Jazeera? LOL do go on old chap. We ARE amused.

There is no video proof of any Syrian unarmed civilians being shot at by the SAA but there are plenty of the terrorist FSA murdering civilians.

The turning point in this revolution, the decisive moment, is when the rebels neutralize Bashar airforce,only then Assad will flee.
His speech was nonesense,far from reality and impractical, he has not admitted that the revolution is THE FSA,so far he refused to have dialogue with them.he is delusional.the FSA is the master of this revolution,not the SNC.
Assad he rejected Brahimi plan,which call for transitional goverment with FULL authority, which clearly means Assad has to relinquish power.
Haytham Mannaa is worthless person.

@ 282. Well, had you the most marginal knowledge of the locale, you’d probably guess people shouting “Takbir” and “Allahu Akbar” are pretty unlikely to be pro-government demonstrators. Sooo who could be killing them, if they’re demonstrating against the government, hmmm? In the second video, you can see at 1:04 a guy in salafi outlook walking by (single one, do not misconstrue this, the guy with bloodied body is shaved on the contrary). You know, most people by then would probably realise they’re talking nonsense when they’re blaming these killings on FSA, but you sound to me like the type who will insist on his falsehoods all the way until the regime falls and then some more. It is the regime that is killing these people. And it is people like you who enable it to do so. Without useful idiots like you, the regime would have fallen long time ago, but your fear of the opposition is going to bring the whole country down in flames.

@ 284. Please, those videos are WAR PROPAGANDA. In case you hadn’t noticed there is a WAR going on. People are DYING.

Terrorists SHOULD be killed. The more the SAA KILLS the better for all of us.

The only regime is that of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Syria has a GOVERNMENT. You don’t like that fact that’s too bad.

Assad’s bombing and shelling campaign drove the refugess out of their home in the first place. Why should any of them trust him?

It’s like someone coming to your house and setting it on fire, and then offering to rebuild it.

Syria doesn’t have a government anymore. What sort of government bombs and shells its citizens and cannot provide food or security for them?

The war continues.

By the way, Revenire is a troll. He is NOT Syrian. He probably lives in America. And he definitely has psychological issues. He’s the type of person you expect to read one day in the newspaper shooting up a room full of kids with a rifle. His lack of knowledge about Syria gives him away.

@ 285 Revenire. Back in 2011, where these videos come from, there was no war, although there was conflict. How does this change the content of the videos? These people are dying because they’re shot. Shot by a government. That you’re backing. Which one of them has any guns? What did the cameraman do to deserve to be shot? How is it any terrorism to tape the government crackdown on the protesters? Or is it terrorism to march down a street?

You’re insane. I would use vulgar words but there’s no use. It’s like throwing peas at a wall. You’re going to knee-jerk at everything that’s going to be said and troll this debate whatever is going to appear here.

@ 287. That’s nonsense. From the very first day FSA terrorists shot innocent people at demonstrations.

I don’t care what language you use. You obviously can’t handle intelligent debate and expect people to swallow terrorist propaganda like it was ice cream.

You should feel frustrated. We’ve caught the terrorists lying so many times using fake photos and fake videos.

Opposition Figure: Assad’s Peace Initiative Leads Syria towards Democracy

TEHRAN (FNA)- A prominent Syrian opposition figure said President Bashar al-Assad’s three-staged peace plan blocked the way to many foreign plots and can push Syria towards democracy.

Speaking to FNA in Damascus on Tuesday, founder of the Justice Party Nabil Fayyaz noted that President Assad’s plan was a step forward, adding that if the first stage does not face any problem, the other stages will be easily implemented.

“We as a national movement for the salvation of Syria wish our country to get rid of this crisis and we support any plan presented for bringing Syria our of this crisis,” Fayyaz said.

Earlier this week, President Assad voiced his readiness for dialogue with the opposition and political parties in Syria. The Syrian leader also proposed general elections, adoption of a new constitution as well as a national reconciliation conference.

In a speech in Central Damascus on Sunday, President Assad called for a reconciliation conference with “those who have not betrayed Syria”, to be followed by the formation of a new government and an amnesty.

“The first stage of a political solution would require that regional powers stop funding and arming (the opposition), an end to terrorist operations and controlling the borders,” he said.

“We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West,” he said.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple Assad and his ruling system. Media reports said that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad’s government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month

@ Michal

Revenire is a troll with psychological issues.

He is NOT from Syria. He is most likely American and knows almost nothing about the Middle East and he cannot read Arabic. He’s the type of person you expect to read one day on the newspaper shooting a roomful of kids.

Every time Revenire says something, just copy and paste this message.

the war against syria began no later than the war against libya “ended”.

the serious destabilization, murders, assaults, foreign terrorists began after libya was destroyed, gaddafi was murdered.

the jewish west saw its opportunity to destroy all of israel’s enemies.

after libya, syria/lebanon with the main target, iran.

but

the criminal assaults will end at syria.

syria will win is winning.

@ 290. Marigoldran

You’re right, I shouldn’t have let the trolls engage me.

Engaging trolls is fine. But the right way to do it is to insult them personally.

There’s no point arguing with a person like Revenire over the situation in Syria. Revenire doesn’t really care about Syria or Assad or really anything. His soul is empty (or filled with hate). He’s here to annoy people. As I’ve said before, he has psychological issues and he’s the type who will shoot a room full of kids.

Fresh from my Arabic class, this poem by Ahmed Matar

الى بشار الاسد من شاعر الحرية أحمد مطر
مقاومٌ بالثرثرة
ممانعٌ بالثرثرة

له لسانُ مُدَّعٍ..
يصولُ في شوارعِ الشَّامِ كسيفِ عنترة
يكادُ يلتَّفُ على الجولانِ والقنيطرة
مقاومٌ لم يرفعِ السِّلاحَ
لمْ يرسل إلى جولانهِ دبابةً أو طائرةْ
لم يطلقِ النّار على العدوِ
لكنْ حينما تكلَّمَ الشّعبُ
صحا من نومهِ
و صاحَ في رجالهِ..
مؤامرة !
مؤامرة !
و أعلنَ الحربَ على الشَّعبِ
و كانَ ردُّهُ على الكلامِ..
مَجزرةْ
مقاومٌ يفهمُ في الطبِّ كما يفهمُ في السّياسةْ
استقال مِن عيادةِ العيونِ
كي يعملَ في ” عيادةِ الرئاسة ”
فشرَّحَ الشّعبَ..
و باعَ لحمهُ وعظمهُ
و قدَّمَ اعتذارهُ لشعبهِ ببالغِ الكياسةْ
عذراً لكمْ..
يا أيَّها الشَّعبُ
الذي جعلتُ من عظامهِ مداسا
عذراً لكم..
يا أيَّها الشَّعبُ
الذي سرقتهُ في نوبةِ الحراسةْ
عذراً لكم..
يا أيَّها الشَّعبُ الذي طعنتهُ في ظهرهِ
في نوبةِ الحراسةْ
عذراً..
فإنْ كنتُ أنا ” الدكتورَ ” في الدِّراسةْ
فإنني القصَّابُ و السَّفاحُ..
و القاتلُ بالوراثةْ !
دكتورنا ” الفهمانْ ”
يستعملُ السّاطورَ في جراحةِ اللسانْ
مَنْ قالَ : ” لا ” مِنْ شعبهِ
في غفلةٍ عنْ أعينِ الزَّمانْ
يرحمهُ الرحمنْ
بلادهُ سجنٌ..
و كلُّ شعبهِ إما سجينٌ عندهُ
أو أنَّهُ سجَّانْ
بلادهُ مقبرةٌ..
أشجارها لا تلبسُ الأخضرَ
لكنْ تلبسُ السَّوادَ و الأكفانْ
حزناً على الإنسانْ
أحاكمٌ لدولةٍ..
مَنْ يطلقُ النَّارَ على الشَّعبِ الذي يحكمهُ
أمْ أنَّهُ قرصانْ ؟
لا تبكِ يا سوريّةْ
لا تعلني الحدادَ
فوقَ جسدِ الضحيَّة
لا تلثمي الجرحَ
و لا تنتزعي الشّظيّةْ
القطرةُ الأولى مِنَ الدَّمِ الذي نزفتهِ
ستحسمُ القضيّةْ
قفي على رجليكِ يا ميسونَ..
يا بنتَ بني أميّةْ
قفي كسنديانةٍ..
في وجهِ كلِّ طلقةٍ و كلِّ بندقية
قفي كأي وردةٍ حزينةٍ..
تطلعُ فوقَ شرفةٍ شاميّةْ
و أعلني الصرَّخةَ في وجوههمْ
حريّة
و أعلني الصَّرخةَ في وجوههمْ
حريّةْ

REVENIRE is a plant by the opposition to ridicule menhebaks and make them look really bad.

Great news from Aleppo on Ziad’s blog:

FOURTH POST – JANUARY 8, 2013- SYRIAN ARMY BAGS THE LIMIT IN ALEPPO; ADVANTAGE ASSAD; HUMILIATING SETBACK FOR ERDOGHAN, NATO AND PRINCE HOG OF QATAR

We have just received an e-mail from Wael in Latakia. He writes that the situation in Aleppo has just improved by 80% with the encirclement and vaporization of over 316 rats in Al-Ashrafiyyeh, Aleppo. Wael adds that after yesterday’s debacle, English terrorists in Incirlik recommended a deployment of 400 rats as reinforcements so as not to lose the old quarters in the city. Whoever is commanding these rodents should have his head examined. Wael says they walked into a turkey shoot.

Ashrafiyyeh sits at the northern entryway to the city’s oldest quarters. It also looks down at the major Christian quarters of Aziziyya and Sleimaniyya across Khalid Ibn Al-Walid Avenue. Wael also reports that in trying to reinforce their hapless and mapless cohorts, the rats wound up depleting their few remaining confederates in Bustan Al-Qasr. With Saif Al-Dawla and Salah Al-Din now rat free, the entire south of Aleppo is firmly in government hands. It also appears that unless the rodents can get more reinforcements in from Turkey, the entire Aleppan episode is over for the time being. Erdoghan and the Prince of Syphilis have been handed a feast of crows. A massive defeat for NATO!

Dead rats identified so far by MI and police are an interesting combination of nationalities. Judging from the size of their beards, many are committed Salafists now straddling the fence between Hell and oblivion.

Edhem Mehmet Kurat (Turk)
Sadiq Kadhim Al-Umari (Iraqi)
Muhammad Ali Al-Khazraji (Iraqi)
Mahmous Muhammad Husameddine
Ma’rouf Asmar (Jordanian)
Saoud Abderrahman Widadi (Saudi)
Muhammad Sayf Dammami (?)
Rafic Sa’adeddine Albaji
Ahmad Suleiman Skafi
Walid Ali Midhat
Ahmad Muhammad Al-Ali (Iraqi)
Belqassem Hamid Treiki (Libyan papers)
Sufyan Badii Al-‘Ateeq
Muhammad Bouhamdan (Moroccan)
Khoza Salambekov (Chechen)
Munqidh Ali Ihtiram
Rustam Fayzulev (Chechen)
Abdel-Basit Abdel-Samad Al-Mawla
Badran Mansour (Jordanian)
Yazid Muhammad Kroumi
Asim Abdullah Alviyev (Chechen)

More names of the carcasses are coming in over the next few days. Wael has no names of captured rodents.

A syrian insulting and fighting Assad is not a real syrian, is a real heroe.

No life to those you call upon.
What a waste of time to try to argue with nitwits.

Here is some nice reading today
أربعة أشياء جديدة في خطاب الفقاقيع

أربعة أشياء جديدة لفتت نظري أمس الأحد في الخطاب السادس لبشار الأسد بعد انطلاق الثورة السورية المباركة. الشئ الأول اعترافه (بزلة لسان) بأنه كان قد قرر استعمال (الحل الأمني) منذ البداية، وهذا وحده يضمن له الإعدام. الثاني تطوير النظام لشعار (الله سورية بشار وبس) إلى شعار (الله بشار والجيش المغوار)، وهذا يعتبر سابقة خطيرة إذا يدل أن النظام يعترف بأن كل سورية باتت ضده وبالتالي فقد عاقبها بأن نزعها من على الخريطة (كما فعل وليد المعلم بأوربا سابقاً) واستبدلها بالجيش الذي يحميه، وبهذا باتت المؤسسة العسكرية-الأمنية هي وطنه البديل.
الشئ الثالث كان الهتاف في نهاية الخطاب (شبيحة للأبد كرمال عيونك ياأسد) وهو يدل على قرار النظام ومؤيديه الاعتراف بأنهم عصابة وأنهم، من الآن فصاعداً، لن يجدوا أنفسهم مضطرين لإخفاء أو تبرير جرائمهم، وذلك على مبدأ المثل الشعبي (أحمض ماعندكم اطبخوا). الشئ الرابع والأخير، والذي أعتقد أنه الأهم، فهو تصريحه بأنه (مستعد لسماع نصيحة الأصدقاء ولكنه سيتصرف بما يراه هو). ويبدو هنا أن النظام يوجه رسالة من جديد لروسيا التي يستشعر بتغير محتمل في موقفها يجبره على الرحيل بناء على توافق مع الغرب وخاصة مع أمريكا. وكلنا يعرف بالاجتماع القريب بين خارجيتي روسيا وأمريكا بحضور الابراهيمي قريباً، فالرجل يذكرهم بتلك العبارة أن (لاتنسوني فأنا لن أذهب طوعاً). فالعالم (البراغماتي) كله بما فيه إسرائيل، بات يرى اليوم أن بقاء النظام الأمني في سورية أهم لهم من بقاء رأس النظام وعصابته، طبعاً ماعدا إيران التي تدفعها سياساتها الطائفية والتوسعية لأن لاترى أبعد من أنفها.

الملفت للنظر هنا أن أحداً لايلقي انتباهاً للشعب السوري ولالثورته ولالشهدائه ولالعذاباته، وهذا مايجعل كافة اللاعبين الدوليين في هذا الموضوع (أضرب) من بعضهم وسيجعلهم عرضة للانتقام المشروع من الشعب حين ينتصر، كل بقدر ما دلا بدلوه.
***
بقلم: طريف يوسف آغا
كاتب وشاعر عربي سوري مغترب
عضو رابطة كتاب الثورة السورية
الاثنين 25 صفر 1434، 7 كانون الثاني، جانيوري 2013
هيوستن / تكساس

ZOO, thank you for #252. It looks like you anticipated my post immediately above. I shall keep my promise as stated there. It is only personal when we make it personal.

I know think/speculate/wish to believe that you accept what I meant in the earlier plea to you: TARA cares for you, and I cannot choose not to believe that you do not care for her.

Cherished beliefs are like faith sometimes. However certain in one’s heart, it is faith and trust that provide an incalculable support for the sense of certainty.

Cognitive dissonance is the jargon and the dry technical term for what happens in the mind when two (seemingly) contradictory thoughts clash. One thought may be labelled rational and the other irrational, but how one deals with the conscious/unconscious distress of uncertainty is variable. In some cases it is the premises underpinning one or both (seeming) contradictions that are the fault.

Doubt. A sword. Two edges. Of variable sharpness along their lengths. No skepticism means the risk of falling into unjustified belief. Too much skepticism has the obvious corollary danger.

I announce an unconditional truce, or pause, or what have you.
All I want to know is how you feel because I don’t understand it

I can’t speak for Zoo (although I am accused of being part of a Zoo Consortium) but people resent Canadians supporting beheadings and terror committed by the FSA while pumping “Gay Girl in Damascus” stories from people like Amal Hanano and others.

It is really quite simple.

WSS

My feelings are none of your business

MICHAL

I recall seeing news footage on TV back in early 2011 showing peaceful demonstrators fleeing gunfire, as well as at funerals.

I know I stood in front of the TV grabbing the phone in alarm to check if people close to me were likely to demonstrate and beg them to consider the risks.

Evidently REVENIRE wasn’t focused on news from Syria back then.

@302. Again: we don’t buy your fake revolution that wants Syria to be bombed by NATO after being raped by NATO death squads. You go ahead and cry the same tune over and over and post 1000 propaganda videos complete with text from the new “Gay Girl From Damascus” Amal Hanano.

We’re not buying what you are selling.

The SAA protects Syrians not kills them.

Why are the Palestinians divided over their loyalty to Bashar Al Assad when they are all Sunnis and from the same upbringing?
Gunmen ( the rebels) are asked to move out….

Palestinians call for cease-fire at refugee camp
Factions clash over loyalty to Assad
By Albert Aji and Barbara Surk
Tuesday, January 8, 2013

DAMASCUS, Syria — Palestinian factions in Syria called for a cease-fire Tuesday after fighting flared at a refugee camp in the capital, Damascus, highlighting a split among Palestinians as the civil war intensifies.
…
In a statement, representatives of 14 Damascus-based Palestinian factions called for a cease-fire and a halt to all military operations to enable medical teams and food supply trucks to enter the camp.

They urged gunmen to withdraw from the camp “in order not to bear the responsibility of the continuing displacement of [Yarmouk‘s] residents.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/8/palestinians-call-cease-fire-refugee-camp/#ixzz2HQTmkUqm

It was expected: As the opposition (after 21 months) has yet no plan in response to Bashar’s detailed plan of transition, the UK is hurrily organizing on Wednesday a two-day meeting with international experts to advise (dictate) the opposition the “counter-proposal” to Bashar Al Assad’s, smartly presented as the “Post-Bashar” proposal

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1246799/1/.html

“The UK’s objective is to galvanise international thinking and planning on a Syrian-led political transition,” a spokesman said.

“We’re doing everything we can to bring an end to the violence in Syria and achieve a genuine political transition.”

Ban Ki Moon: “Crimes against humanity by both sides”

Rebels (al Nusra) execute three (alawites) soldiers, including one accused of rape and publish a video …

http://gulftoday.ae/portal/f843ddc1-3320-4373-a33d-095cb9aef6d8.aspx

DAMSCUS: Rebels from the jihadist Al Nusra Front executed three captured soldiers in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Tuesday.
….
They give their names and hometown while the man interrogating them identifies them as Alawites, minority sect to which President Bashar Al Assad and his senior officials belong.

One is accused of raping a young woman. The video then showed the mangled bodies of the men lying in a ditch.

“The dogs of Assad have violated the women of Deir Ezzor, and this is what will happen to anyone who does such a thing,” a man shouted from behind the camera.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the men were captured on Saturday, but no date was given for their executed.

The new killings come on the heels of a UN report, which said the situation in Syria was continuing to degenerate amid a “proliferation of serious crimes including war crimes, and most probably crimes against humanity, by both sides.”

Mrs Suhair Attasi shows she is more active and courageous than Al Khatib.
The hospital is housed in a abandoned Syrian Customs barrack a few yards from the Reyhanli Turkish border.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/in-turkish-border-town-syrian-doctors-and-other-refugees-plan-the-future-8398440.html

UOSSM Proudly Announces the Grand Opening of Bab Alhawa Hospital Emergency Section – Syria

Washington, DC (PRWEB) January 08, 2013
The Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (UOSSM) is proud to announce the opening of Bab AlHawa hospital – phase one – in Northern Syria as a part of UOSSM’s continuous efforts to meet the increased medical demands resulted from the ongoing barbaric attack of Assad forces.

The opening ceremony was held in the hospital on Friday January 4th 2013, with the presence of Mrs Suhair al-Attasi, Vice President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces…. At the end Mrs Attasi extended Syrian people’s gratitude to Turkey. The ceremony was attended by Dr Abdulrahman, President of UOSSM; Dr Monzer Yazji, the head of UOSSM Turkish office; and by the Governor of Reyhanli.

The Sunni Spring

…
Clearly, these protests reflect the growing polarisation between Sunni and Shia, both within Iraq and across the region, a polarisation spurred by the Syria conflict.

In Iraq, at least, it is still unclear who will emerge from all this tension as the winner.

With Sunni and Kurdish disenfranchisement growing steadily, Mr Al Maliki will turn to his Shia constituencies for support; they may well regard Sunni and other dissent as a challenge to their status in society.

Further, Iraq’s future is made still less certain by the unpredictability of what comes next in Syria. The battle for Damascus and the aftermath could play out in part on Iraqi soil.

The rising prowess and ascendancy of Sunni forces in the region means that Mr Al Sadr might have been close to being correct in calling the Anbar protests Iraq’s version of the Arab Spring.

More precisely, we are seeing a Sunni Spring unfolding in Iraq and the region.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/malikis-dangerous-game-is-increasing-sectarian-dangers#ixzz2HQniNQYn
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook

ZOO,

That Moaz al-Khatib is damn annoyng, isn’t he?

He won’t go into Syria at the moment to please you.

Worse, he calls on Iran to withdraw personnel aiding Assad and asks Moscow to apologize for interfering in Syrian affairs.

He must be really exasperating the regime with his disrespect. Though I know plenty of Syrians he is pleasing.

These are the actual hard kernels of truth in REVENIRE’s crazy about me.

Of absolute non-interest except to those who wonder how he might have built the tale. Enough said.
____________________

PUNK ROCK William, from Susanne Tabata’s 2010 release “Bloodied But Unbowed,” with Bill Shirt aka Bill Scherk of Los Popularos:

Bill Scherk on Los Popularos
August 14, 2010

Bill Scherk (a.k.a. Bill Shirt) talks about all-star band Los Popularos, and the definition of the “Fuck Band”. (Note: Webisodes are not scenes from the Bloodied But Unbowed documentary film; they consist of extended interviews, outtakes, and material shot specifically for thepunkmovie.com)

http://thepunkmovie.com/webisodes/bill-scherk-los-popularos

Bill’s Morning Makeup Tips number one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxLmZmUosE

Bill’s Morning Makeup Tips number two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ijzGMDA8tk

_____

Plus, where REVENIRE agrees with me on Glenn Beck of all things on Beck’s nutter MENA conspiracy theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ijzGMDA8tk

I wish JAD would come back and fill in REVENIRE on the struggle to be nice, or at least not personally nasty.

On the Sunni-Shia thing, ZOO, it’s possibly in for a blurring in the region, and to Iran’s disadvantage.

We now have powerful and intransigent Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr joining with Sunnis and Christians in calling for Maliki to quit and Iran to get out of Iraq.

Bill how a nice Canadian guy went from anarchy in Canada to terrorist supporter fascinates me. I suspect it wasn’t from listening to the Mekons’ “Memphis Egypt” was it? Maybe “Lost Highway” is better suited…

I’m a rolling stone, all alone and lost,
For a life of sin, I have paid the cost.
When I pass by, all the people say
“Just another guy on the lost highway.”

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
And a woman’s lies make a life like mine.
Oh, the day we met, I went astray,
I started rollin’ down that lost highway.

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two,
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you,
And now I’m lost, too late to pray,
Lord, I’ve paid the cost on the lost highway.

Now, boys, don’t start your ramblin’ round,
On this road of sin or you’re sorrow bound.
Take my advice or you’ll curse the day
You started rollin’ down that lost highway.

When did you sell out Bill?

Interview with Marine LePen, president of the National Front about Syria and Qatar’s interference in France

( subtitles in Arabic)

#311 Syrialover

It is certainly a golden opportunity (with a smell of money, oil and gas) for the Sunnis after the collapse of four Sunni dictators, Ben Ali ,Saddam Hussein, Mobarak, and Gaddafi who have dominated the region for 40+ years with the full support of the GCC, the USA and the EU .

Will they take advantage of that to show creativity and honesty or will they fall into corruption or the islamist ideological trap?

Time will tell…

Did anyone mention Brooklyn, NY?

Lots of my good memories happened in Brooklyn…it was in Brooklyn where a Syrian Muslim. a Copt, an orthodox Christian from Wadi al Nasara and a good catholic girl from Croatia befriended each other for quite some time. They never identified themselves as such. They all fasted Ramadan and celebrated Christmas and Easter. I am glad I did not meet a Warren or a Reve then. I would’ve been just as ugly..

Syrialover

Yes he is an exasperating ‘comparse’

Tara why don’t you just wish death on supporters of President Assad again? That’s so human of you. I feel like I am falling in love.

Joshua’s conclusion that the regime can not win the war may be right or wrong based on whether the regime and the opposition change or stay the same.
Without a change in the regime’s behavior and policies, the army will continue to lose grounds,may be slowly but steadily, numbers do matter in a civil war,but without a change in the opposition position(s), victory may take years and only come after tens of thousands of Syrian killed and more cities destroyed. Without the departure of Assad and the inclusion of moderate opposition elements in a future unity government the country will continue to bleed and Islamists will continue to grow, it may get to the point where Russia and Iran have to sacrifiy a stubborn leader for the sake of preserving their last friendly government in the Middle East. Assad will do his best to imprison or get rid of any potential alawi leader, dr AA Alkhayyer as an example, he and his supporters will argue that Assad has to stay because there is ” no one else” who has the trust of the army, I yet have to hear a single intelligent argument about why Assad is the ONE, if Syria becomes another Somalia,we can easily blame Assad as much as Islamist rebels for this undesirable outcome.

UK-based think tank the Quilliam Foundation has just released a strategic briefing paper on extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra currently fightng in Syria.

This would be the most detailed information about al-Nusra published so far.

Here’s their press release explaining why they did the study: http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/press-releases/quilliam-releases-new-strategic-briefing-jabhat-al-nusra/

And here’s their report:
http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/publications/free/jabhat-al-nusra-a-strategic-briefing.pdf

COMMENT: I have only just scanned it and yet to read it in full.

But it looks like they reached a similar conclusion about al-Nusra to mine.

Basically I see al-Nusra seeking political power as like a dog chasing a car: it wouldn’t know what do if it catches it.

“313. ZOO said:

Interview with Marine LePen, president of the National Front about Syria and Qatar’s interference in France

( subtitles in Arabic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wY_DQMlAH2g”

A menhebbakje quoting Marine Lepen, what a surprise

Shame on you Mohammad Turki al-Sayyed.  Shame on you…

Syrian minister: Enemies ‘brainwashed’ slain rebel son
From Joe Sterling, Salma Abdelaziz and Saad Abedine, CNN

(CNN) — A Syrian Cabinet minister confirmed the death of his rebel son, and, without a trace of grief, coldly rejected the young man’s embrace of the opposition, according to a state news report.

“I disapprove and condemn whatever my son did,” said Mohammad Turki al-Sayyed, minister of state for the People’s Assembly Affairs, who acknowledged the death of his son, Bassim. “I said it before and I disavow him again, fully even after his death.”

Al-Sayyed’s statement, reported by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, illustrates the collapse of Syrian family stability during the 22-month old conflict, now a full-blown civil war. The United Nations says more than 60,000 people have died in the carnage, which shows no signs of stopping.

As for Bassim al-Sayyed, one activist wrote on his Facebook page that he joined demonstrators at the start of the uprising in 2011. He later joined the Free Syrian Army and was killed in the fighting.
…
Mourners at his December 30 funeral shouted his praises and chanted “God is mightier than any tyrant,” according to videos posted on an opposition Facebook page. The videos said Bassim was killed in a battle for the police institute of Sarmada, a northern city, “fighting the government forces of his father, the minister.”
“We will never kneel down, never surrender,” one man chanted.

But the minister said Bassim “joined the ranks of the terrorists who wanted to tear down the country” because he was “brainwashed by Syria’s enemies.” He repeated his assertion that media outlets and entities across the globe are plotting against President Bashar al-Assad’s government

“The homeland is above everyone and when it comes to Syria, all the titles, relations and even the personal emotions mean nothing when it comes to the nation,” Mohammad Turki al-Sayyed said. “When it comes to choosing between terrorism and the homeland, the minister always chose the homeland and disavowing himself from everyone who wants to stir evil in the nation even if it was his own son.”
….

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/08/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html

A heart-breaking story that symbolizes the suffering of many Syrian children…
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=imi_t4#/video/world/2013/01/07/natpkg-syria-vignette-sharifa.cnn

This is what Turkish thugs and their pimps have done in Aleppo:
وجّه رئيس اتحاد غرف الصناعة السورية فارس الشهابي أمس إلى وزارة الخارجية والمغتربين كتاباً طالبها بمخاطبة الأمم المتحدة رسمياً للإسراع بضرورة تشكيل لجنة حيادية لتقصي الحقائق بخصوص معاناة الصناعيين السوريين من أعمال السرقة والتخريب المتعمدة التي قامت وتقوم بها العصابات المسلحة ضد المعامل والمنشآت الصناعية في مختلف المناطق في محافظة حلب والتي تم بموجبها سرقة الآلات والتجهيزات والمواد الأولية والمصنعة وغيرها ونقلها إلى تركيا بكل سهولة عبر البوابات الحدودية المعروفة التي تسيطر عليها العصابات المسلحة.
وأشار الشهابي في كتابه وبالنيابة عن الصناعيين السوريين، إلى مطالبة الخارجية السورية للهيئة الدولية من أجل تقصي الحقائق «وتأكيد مزاعمنا أو دحضها ونحن مستعدون للتعاون مع هذه اللجنة ومع حكومتنا من أجل إنجاح هذا الموضوع، وفي حال ثبت ما ندعيه سنطالب المجتمع الدولي بالضغط على الحكومة التركية لدفع كامل التعويضات للصناعيين المتضررين وإعادة المسروقات إلى أصحابها».
ولفت الكتاب إلى أن الشكوك تحوم حول وجود علاقة وثيقة بين هذه العصابات والحكومة التركية التي تسهل عبور المسروقات دون أي رقابة أو أوراق رسمية، وفي بعض الحالات يأتي فنيون أتراك مع العصابات لكي ينقلوا الآلات التي يرغبون فيها.
وقال: أطالب بوضع المنتجات التركية على لائحة المقاطعة، ومعاملتها معاملة البضائع الإسرائيلية إلى حين اعتذار الحكومة التركية من الشعب السوري رسمياً، ودفع التعويضات كاملة للمتضررين.

GHUFRAN #322,

Oh no! Just when we persuade you to put links, you give one which CNN has somehow stuffed up – it leads to an item on the LA gadget show instead of children in Syria.

Please don’t let that mishap put you off links.

# 321 TARA,

Mohammad Turki al-Sayyed is probably speaking to save his life and that of the rest of his family.

An ugly situation, and one which would not be uncommon now in Syria.

It probably means guilt and psycholigical unease for the rest of their lives.

In post-Assad Syria their son will probably be the one thing people will respect and accept about the al-Sayyed family.

The link is good,SL
LA gadget show?
I love gadgets,please send me the link

SL @ 325

You are right. I take what I said back. I am sure he is under duress to say what he said. I forgot for a second the republic of fear that we came from.

Mohammad Turki al-Sayyed is a patriot.

He is a hero.

A new Bashar Cartoon

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/kni/lowres/knin666l.jpg

http://playwrighter.blogspot.com/2011/06/stuck-in-damascus-with-memphis-blues.html

SL
the link for the story on ass-kisser Shihabi

http://alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=131833

Just in case you want to know the source of unlinked stories.

The problem with all of the regime propaganda methods is that they only succeed in making themselves look bad. The regime and its supporters are unable to understand how others think. Which is why everything it tries only leads to greater failure.

The regime has no empathy. It has not compassion. And that is it’s greatest weakness. Everything that it tries only increases the number of enemies against it.

*******************************************

Syria is not a nation anymore, so talking about “the government” or “the homeland” is pointless. And besides, who wants to live in a “homeland” like that, right now? As I’ve said before, even Pakistan is a better place to live in than Syria.

The regime’s propaganda is about “defending the country.” But how do you defend a country that doesn’t exist anymore? The concept of Syrian nationalism is only regime propaganda designed to cover up their baser motives: they’re not defending the country, they’re defending themselves.

Baathism is stupid. It only leads to disaster. Every country that has adopted Baathism has failed.

Even Pakistan has done a better job than the formerly Baathist countries of Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

via the telegraph:

I’ve written before how it would never be rational for him to use chemical weapons. Instead of saving his regime, this would actually guarantee his downfall – as one US official told the New York Times: “This is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war.”

i can’t believe people still buy this argument. the world doesn’t care.

The story about the looting of factories and selling machinery to our Turkish ” brothers” is all over the net and was verified by numerous sources, the fact that regime media took advantage of the story and that Shihabi is cozy with the regime does not reduce the significance of the theft and the crime committed, get used to hearing the truth from both ends,guys,each coin has two faces, vision is much better when both eyes are used.

Charles Glass- new York Books:
“One of the few activists who gave permission for me to quote him by name was Zaidoun al-Zoabi, a professor at the Arab European University in Damascus until his dismissal for political reasons last February. He lamented, “Aleppo has been destroyed. It was a city with the regime. No more. Now the regime is losing, but we are losing too. The country is being destroyed.” Zoabi struggles to keep alive the original, peaceful revolution that began in March 2011 and was superseded by the armed rebellion. A young Syrian businessman whose family has long been at odds with the regime blames the armed opposition for trying to bring down the regime by force: “You cannot just break a regime like this, it is built to last. The regime is built for this.” The regime, which in its early days immunized itself against coups d’état with the arrest of suspected dissidents in the army and constant surveillance, made itself rebellion-proof in 1979 as a result of an uprising in Aleppo”.

It’s not as if the factory machinery was being used for anything at the time.

Considering the amount of expense the Turkish government has to spend feeding Syrian refugees, the cost of the machinery is a drop in the bucket. The Syrian regime is not taking care of what was formerly its citizens. So what right do they have to complain about this?

When people are starving and a significant portion of the country are in refugee camps, whose fault is it in the end?

Egypt proud and independent ? MB forever…

Qatar offers crisis-hit Egypt a $2.5b lifeline

by Reuters
January 09, 2013
http://www.timesofoman.com/News/Article-5864.aspx

“Closed doors” for the desperate leaders rebels to “focus minds ”

Syrian rebel leaders in Britain for conference on transition
Wed 9 Jan 2013

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-01-09/syrian-rebel-leaders-in-britain-for-conference-on-transition/

Leaders of the rebellion against Syria’s President Bashar Assad will today join a conference in Britain designed to focus minds internationally on planning for political transition in the Middle Eastern country.

The two-day conference being held behind closed doors at Wilton Park in West Sussex will bring together officials, experts and academics, including representatives of Arab states and multilateral agencies, as well as leaders of the opposition Syrian National Coalition.

LOL this is perfect and exactly what we are saying (FSA are criminals and he admits it). This guy is nuts.

“335. MARIGOLDRAN said:
It’s not as if the factory machinery was being used for anything at the time.
Considering the amount of expense the Turkish government has to spend feeding Syrian refugees, the cost of the machinery is a drop in the bucket. The Syrian regime is not taking care of what was formerly its citizens. So what right do they have to complain about this?
When people are starving and a significant portion of the country are in refugee camps, whose fault is it in the end?”

Being called crazy by a crazy person is a compliment.

It means you’re sane.

If a person like Revenire is trolling you, you know you did something right.

#339 Reve

Be patient with him, he is on a waiting list for the mental asylum of Vaziristan

Marigoldran is one of those patients the FSA “freed” from the Funny House and wants to strap a suicide bomb to.

Don’t do it Mari!!

LOL

@ Zoo

Do you want others to think of you as a nutcase like Revenire, too?

Revenire, the point of trolling is to make the other person look bad. You only succeed in making yourself look like an idiot.

And evil to boot, too. It’s like he’s idiotically evil, or something. That’s the worst combination.

The rebels are really desperate for media attention

In the last 24 hours:

– Assassins of French reporter Gilles Jacquier captured in Syria: video
– Syrian regime commits new massacre in Idlib: opposition group

– Syrian insurgents shoot down air force helicopter

#343 Mari

I have been insulted so many times ( including by you) and with so much worse than being a nut that I just don’t care.

Revenire, similar to the regime he supports, is idiotically evil. Like attracts like.

It’s the worst combination of traits.

@ Zoo

I’m glad you’ve gotten used to it. That means others can kick you more, something I’m sure you’ve had ample experience with. You’d think you’d learn after a while, but apparently you don’t.

Similarly to the regime, you’re stubbornly stupid. As I’ve said: “Like attracts like.”

Marigoldran are you high? You support TERRORISM and are calling others evil? LOL

346. MarigoldRan said:

“You’re stubbornly stupid”

I return the compliment

I am against terrorism, be it by government or non-government organization.

Just because a group of people call themselves the government doesn’t give them the right to bomb and terrorize the country.

@ Zoo

Sure, why not. Like you, I’m also not upset: but the reason is different. Unlike you I haven’t been insulted by many people on this blog, so being insulted is a novel experience.

But since it’s coming from you, it means nothing.

Reve

With supporters like that specimen , no wonder the revolution is a disaster..

To repeat and to return to the topic of Syria:

I am against terrorism, be it by government or non-government organization.

Just because a group of people call themselves the government doesn’t give them the right to bomb and terrorize the country.

Are you willing to make a counter-argument to that? Or do you wish to trade insults until I go to work and I have to stop posting comments online?

If you are against terrorism denounce the FSA (they said they were all al-Nusra remember?). Prove it Marigoldran.

Are you FOR beheadings like you are FOR theft and robbery? I think you are.

You “revolution” freaks are really something else.

The FSA is better than the Syrian regime. It has committed FEWER atrocities than the regime, which is why I support it. Once the FSA has evened the atrocities count (what goes around, comes around… remember?) then I’ll become neutral again.

As I’ve said before, just because a group of people call themselves the government, it doesn’t give them the right to bomb or terrorize the population. Once you see it this way, there is NO excuse for the regime’s actions.

The FSA may not be good, but the regime is most definitely evil.

Once you see this war as a bunch of groups fighting for control of what was formerly known as Syria, everything becomes clearer. Syria HAS no legitimate government. Therefore, the stuff that the regime is doing IS terrorism. Some of the other posters like Gh, for example, holds that view, which I respect, though I do not always agree with him.

The only people that continue to hold the view that Syria is a nation are regime propagandists. They use it as an excuse for their governments’ actions. (“We’re bombing Sunni villages because they harbor “terrorists” who are attacking the country. Etc. etc. )

EDIT: Once you strip that veneer of nationalism away, there is NO excuse for the regime’s actions. It is evil.

Any counter-arguments? Or does my position stand?

Or would you like to engage in another bout of insults?

Of course Syria is a nation. It has been a nation for thousands of years.

It won’t be like Algeria–at least not in terms of outcome.

In the ’90’s the FLN received aid, advisors, equipment, and loans from many Western countries, while never being made subject to trade or financial sanctions. That gave the “pouvoir” in Algeria the wherewithal to defy the FIS (which had won by a massive landslide in the elections).

However, in terms of human and material cost, the civil war in Syria may exceed that of Algeria.

@ Revenire

The land has been there for thousands of years, but the nation has not. It was part of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years before that Empire broke apart. It was replaced by a fragmented group of countries, one of which was Syria.

A bunch of stupid Europeans got together at the end of WWI and said, “well, this piece of land is now considered Syria.” They knew absolutely nothing about the land or the people living there. Why else would they clump Alawites with Sunnis with Kurds in the same country given their propensities for killing one another?

The modern Syrian nation wasn’t born until Hafez Assad united it in the 1960s. We’re seeing today how that experiment has turned out.

But you’re a troll, so you don’t really care. But then again, perhaps you do. Why else would you be trolling on this blog as opposed to some other blog?

EDIT: I was hoping for the Lebanese solution, but it looks increasingly like the Afghanistan solution. At the rate things are going, they should put up road signs at the border of Syria that says:

“Welcome to the new Afghanistan of the Middle East.”

Nah, Syria is a nation. You’re thinking of British-created states like Qatar maybe.

The people there are not Sunni or Alawite etc. first but Syrian first. That is why the SAA is so cohesive. You know how many families married Sunni-Alawite etc. It is all mixed.

New post up

[…] Faisal’s remarks take added meaning when we factor in that in the ‘rare speech’ by Bashar later in the weekend in Damascus, he didn’t criticize Saudi Arabia for arming and funding the Syrian rebels although […]

For sure, Revenire is an idiot, but those who believe him are merely imbeciles.