RE: “…Reem Haddad, Coordinator at Syrian Information Ministry, said at a leaked news online earlier on Friday that President al-Assad is expected to deliver a speech to the nation…”

We all remember Reemie, don’t we?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13708772

[edited for dirt]

Here she is on BBC last couple of days. Now with curly hair. LOL.

Syrian government spokeswoman blames gangs for violence

37 second clip.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14599469

She was on Radio 4’s The Today Programme yesterday.
She was asked how sanctions would affect Syria. She also compared protests to the London riots.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9568000/9568973.stm

هدف العقوبات الأميركية
السبت, 20 أغسطس 2011
مصطفى زين
استكملت الولايات المتحدة بناء ملفها القديم-الجديد ضد سورية ونظامها السياسي، وهو ملف عمره من عمر الأزمات والصراع في الشرق الأوسط وعليه. طوال السنوات الطويلة السابقة كانت دمشق في قلب هذا الصراع، بعدما استطاع الأسد الأب تحويلها إلى لاعب أساسي في الإقليم، خصوصاً بعد «استقالة مصر الطوعية» من دورها وتحولها إلى صدى للسياسة الأميركية، وبعد محاصرة العراق وشل قوته العسكرية والسياسية والاقتصادية.

الواقع أن واشنطن لم تستطع طوال المرحلة السابقة، سواء في عهد الأسد الأب أو الابن، اختراق التحالفات السورية الإقليمية مع إيران وتركيا، اللتين وجدتا في دمشق بوابتهما للدخول إلى قلب العالم العربي. ولم تستطع أيضاً التأثير في الرأي العام السوري الذي كان متمسكاً بطروحات نظامه المعادية لإسرائيل وحلفائها.

على المستوى العربي، كان النظام السوري إلى ما قبل الاحتجاجات الأخيرة، يتمتع بموقع متقدم وتحالفات يعتمد عليها في اي مواجهة يخوضها. هذه التحالفات الخارجية والاستقرار الداخلي أتاحت لدمشق أن تجتاز أزمات كثيرة، منها حربا الخليج الأولى والثانية، والحرب على العراق، وانسحاب جيشها من لبنان عام 2005، والعدوان الإسرائيلي على لبنان عام 2006…

لكن هذه النجاحات بقيت في إطار «البراعة» السورية في إدارة الأزمات السياسية، ولم تسفر عن اي انفراج في العلاقة مع الغرب عموماً ومع الولايات المتحدة خصوصاً، التي لم تتوان عن اصطياد أي فرصة، صغيرة أو كبيرة، للإيقاع بالنظام وشيطنته، كما أنها لم تؤد إلى انفراج حقيقي في العلاقة مع الداخل، بإفساح المجال أمام مزيد من الحريات. وبقي النظام تحت المجهر الأميركي، خصوصاً لجهة علاقاته مع إيران و «حزب الله» و «حماس».

واشنطن وحلفاؤها راهنوا على أن تكون علاقات الأسد مع أنقرة تعويضاً له عن العلاقة مع طهران، لكنه كان ينظر إلى هذه المبادلة «العينية» نظرة أخرى، كان لديه طموح في أن يحتفظ بالعلاقة مع الدولتين وتوسيع ذلك إلى فتح البحار الأربعة بعضها على بعض، وعزل إسرائيل وحلفائها، وأن يصبح شريكاً اساسياً في رسم السياسات الدولية والإقليمية. هو حلم أموي بالعودة إلى التمدد شرقاً التقى مع حلم تركي بالعودة إلى أيام السلطنة العثمانية، لكنه لم يدم طويلاً.

هذا الحلم غير مسموح به، الانفتاح على إيران عبر العراق خط أحمر لا يسمح به الغرب، لأنه يقلب كل المعادلات الإستراتيجية في الشرق الأوسط كله. هذا هو السبب الأساس لمعاداة سورية، سواء كان نظامها بقيادة الأسد أو غيره.

أما بناء الملف، أو مضبطة الاتهام ضد الرئيس، فليست في حاجة إلى الكلام في الإستراتيجيات الكبرى، كان يكفي أن يتظاهر سوريون مطالبين بالإصلاح والحرية ثم بإسقاط النظام، حتى ينبري الغرب و «الشرق» لتبني مطالب المتظاهرين ودعمهم إعلامياً، ولا بأس ببعض الأسلحة أيضاً، كي تصبح المواجهات دموية ويغرق النظام والشعب في دورة عنف طويلة الأمد، ثم تشكيل قيادة معارضة للاتصال بـ «الـمجتمع الدولي» (اقرأ الولايات المتحدة) لتحضيرها سياسياً وإملاء الشروط عليها لتصبح بديلاً للنظام، بعد فشل الرهان على انشقاق في الجيش أو في القيادة السياسية أو الحزبية.

فضلاً عن ذلك، تريثت الولايات المتحدة شهوراً كي تطالب الأسد بالرحيل، ليس لأنها كانت تنتظر منه إجراء إصلاحات، فهذا آخر همها، بل لإنهاكه وتشكيل جبهة من الحلفاء كي لا تكون وحيدة في المواجهة. وبعد أن تم لها ذلك، دولياً بترديد صدى صوتها في أوروبا والعالم العربي وتركيا، طالبته بالرحيل.

ستطول مرحلة استنزاف النظام السوري واستنزاف سورية معه، وقد حققت الولايات المتحدة بعضاً مما تسعى إليه من دون حرب، شكلت تحالفاً دولياً وإقليمياً معادياً لدمشق لإغراق سورية بمشاكلها الداخلية وإبعادها عن التأثير في محيطها، وليس مهماً أن يسقط النظام أو يبقى غارقاً في عزلته.

هذا هو هدف العقوبات.

http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/299305#.TlA4OHH1pac.facebook

With all due respect: The featured story on the hardships that international sanctions will create highlights many of the biases of this blog.

What the statistics on Iraqi children mortality rates during the period of international sanctions fails to take account of is that throughout this entire period Saddam Hussein and his cohorts lived lavishly without any regard to the plight of the poor. This same trend is going on in Damascus today under the Assad dynasty. How many children of the ruling Assad clan will suffer? None! They all have the best of everything!

Let us all take a moment to recall the Vanity Fair article just months ago on Asma Assad “the Rose of the Desert”. How beautiful a picture it painted of the first Syrian family! Strange how the commentators of this blog did not take the time to remind readers of the plight of the Syrian poor then. But now that the regime is in danger of collapse, it seems that these same commentators cannot stop raising the topic of the plight of poor.

It’s this type of oversight that led the Harvard Arab Alumni Association to bestow honors on Asma Assad without ever even acknowledging that her position of privilege was attained at expense of millions of poor Syrians.

If the commentators of this blog want to attain greater credibility they should be consistent in their message. If we are going to discuss the plight of poor Arab children under sanctions let us extend the conversation under the rule of the Assad dynasty. What type of future did the poor have under the regime? What are were their prospects of attaining higher education? How about finding meaningful employment? Truth be told the prospects of the poor under the present regime are as equally grim as under sanctions. It’s just not as obvious. Hence why they are clamoring to overthrow the Assad / Malouf mafia.

LANDIS OMISSION ALERT!

“The UN estimated that many Iraqis died, most children, as a result of the economic embargo imposed by the international community on the Saddam regime. Here is Wikipedia on the effects of the Iraq sanctions”

But you forgot to mention the substantial part Saddam and the UN played in those children’s death. Here is Wikipedia on the effects of Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

Quote:
“Abuse
In addition to criticism of the basic approach, the programme suffered from widespread corruption and abuse. Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the government of Iraq and to UN officials. These accusations were made in many countries, including the US and Norway.[7][dead link]

Benon Sevan of Cyprus, who headed the programme, defended it, claiming that it had only a 2.2% administrative cost and that it was subject to more than 100 audits (internal and external), blaming restrictions from the Security Council for making the situation difficult. He also claimed that 90% of Iraq’s population relied on the programme for its monthly food basket. While Benon Sevan was in charge of the programme, he stonewalled efforts to review and investigate the programme.[8] He ordered his staff that complaints about illegal payoffs should be formally filed with the whistleblower’s country, making them public and allowing Iraq to bar any whistleblowers. In 2000, Dileep Nair, the UN corruption watchdog, wanted to determine the programme’s level of vulnerability. Sevan, along with UN Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Frechette, rejected any such investigation, claiming that it would be too expensive to be worthwhile. Sevan ordered the shredding of years’ worth of documents concerning the programme.[9]

In response to these criticisms, and to evidence acquired after the United States invasion of Iraq, UN Secretary-General accusations were made that skimmed profits were being used to buy influence at the UN and with Kofi Annan himself.

According to an interim report released on February 3, 2005 by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker’s commission (see #Investigations below), much of the food aid supplied under the programme “was unfit for human consumption”. The report concluded that Sevan had accepted nearly $150,000 in bribes over the course of the programme, and in 2005 he was suspended from his position at the United Nations as a result of the investigation of fraud in the programme.[10]

Peter van Walsum, the now-retired Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United Nations and chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee from 1999 to 2000, speculated in a recent book that Iraq deliberately divided the Security Council by awarding contracts to France, Russia, and China but not to the United Kingdom and the United States. He also stated he encountered a number of cases in which he felt the lack of Iraqi cooperation was designed to exacerbate the suffering of its own people. He also claimed that it was his opinion that the sanctions were not an effective deterrent.

Until 2001, the money for the Oil-for-Food Programme transited through the BNP Paribas bank, whose main private share-holder is Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a man estimated to be worth about $1 billion according to Forbes, and ranks 13th in Britain according to The Guardian. Auchi received a 15-month suspended sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal, which has been qualified by the British newspaper as “the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War. Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments”.[11] Elf, an oil company, merged with TotalFina to become Total S.A. in 2003 ”

Unquote.

Vedat The Turk
Expecting consistency from the pro-regime posters is untennable. You are dealing either with confused people, or with outright Isalmophobes. In both cases, cirtical analysis does not exist. The first sign of their fraud is that they call themselves secular.

Good morning SC,

ما أحلى الحرية و خصوصا عندما يتغنى بها الصوت الملائكي صوت فيروز http://t.co/GUAfXFN

اطلالة تلفزيونية اليوم للأسد…والأخيرة إنشالله

It’s been a while I didn’t visit the Disneyland comment section. Just for the background:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MH20Ak01.html
(on Libya)
and remember, the riots of Algiers in 1988 led to the end of the Party and to a democratic election… we know what happened next.
In Egypt, the MB are doing their best to spread rumours that there is no security, another way to promote their utopian Islamic state. Crime is probably as high as it was, in a country of 80 millions.

The folks who blame Saddam for the West crimes seem to think Iraq is a better place now. I am happy I am not Syrian today. Syria was attacked at once when the new leadership of Egypt showed signs of friendship towards Iran, by letting boats cross the Suez canal and open an embassy, last february. It was a matter on not allowing this alliance get too strong. And it is so nice to have something to show on tv that does not harm the West’s interests, such as Bahrain , Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, Europe’s protests.

Oh, I forgot: “Welcome to Kurdistan”
http://www.myantiwar.org/view/227702.html
http://www.myantiwar.org/view/227744.html

Professor Landis, the caption for the picture you posted is misleading. Actually, it’s just plain wrong

“Syrian anti-government protestors Demanding intervention of Arab Armies”

What the banner held up actually says is

“We ask the Arab countries to intervene immediately to protect civilians”. That you choose to define “intervene” in strictly the military sense of the word is unwarranted.

Obviously, if anyone is banking on a military intervention, they would look to Turkey or NATO. None of the Arab countries have the capability to move significant numbers of military units beyond their own borders.

I await junior’s next speech with the same anticipation as I would a football match between Brazil and Jamaica, the result is a foregone conclusion.

Obviously, junior will strike a defiant tone, try to shore up his dwindling base of support, and maybe mouth some insincere promises of reforms. I’m hoping for some more comedic fodder like his infamous “germs” screw up.

Video Shows Gunmen Killing Policeman in Homs

http://www.sana.sy/eng/337/2011/08/20/365077.htm

HOMS, (SANA)- The Syrian Television on Saturday broadcast a video showing members of armed terrorist groups shooting the policeman Ra’ed Ashour dead in al-Hamidiyeh street in the city of Homs.

The video, which was shot from a surveillance camera on August 11, showed an unknown silver car intercepting Ashour on his way home in al-Madabe’ neighborhood near al-Sitteen street.

Four gunmen appeared getting out of the car and trying to kidnap the policeman after beating him up. However, when they could not force him get into the car, they fired at him directly and Ashour was martyred by several shots in the chest, the left thigh and the left leg.

Martyr Ashour was born in al-Sabboureh in Hama province in 1978. He left behind a wife and four children.

Ashour’s family expressed their pride in their son’s martyrdom for the sake of the homeland in the face of the terrorists and saboteurs.

From previous post by Tara#116

“Based on above statistics and if you live in the US or Russia, you should plan from now where you want your kids to immigrate. That is called long term planning… The problem is, we Muslims are ubiquitous. We are everywhere and we bite.”
“We are everywhere and we bite”

“We are everywhere and we bite”

“We are everywhere and we bite”

“We are everywhere and we bite”

“We are everywhere and we bite”

“We are everywhere and we bite”

No comment!

@11 That’s the same white KIA that was videoed near Khaldia in the early days. It contained shabiha turds firing at security men. I assume the license plate is visible in this video? Then I look forward to the security forces catching the perpetrators.

Or are they going to ignore them like they ignored the pipeline blast, alleged military academy attack, and trail derailment?

ABOUD
Expecting honor and integrity from shabeeha, including the ones we have on SC is also untennable. The only thing they are good at, other than murder or calling for murders, is self deceptive fraud.

Iron Dome intercepts 9 Grad rockets above Beer Sheva last night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDgrtvyTcB8
.

NZ
If Fairuz knows that you are using one of her songs to destroy a country she loved,she will spit at you.

@16 Fairoz is too classy to spit. The menhebaks could learn some manners from her.

Hilarious video, part 3 of The People’s Palace 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kPbTLOsPXI&ref=nf

OTW, yes, it’s painfully obvious that we are dealing with drones here, who are probably required to submit a daily report on how many times they have posted the words “terrorist”, “zionist”, and “bil ro7 bel dam ya Bashar”, and how many times they have pushed the dislike button.

DISNEY LAND
MINA @ 8
We always welcome visitors from La La Land

Spitting

Failing Poet/Comic @ 16,

You too are having a hissy fit?

You know what happens to bad comedians?, they become clowns.

Syria diverting attention from internal unrest
Arabic News Digest
Aug 21, 2011
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/syria-diverting-attention-from-internal-unrest
Is Syria trying to open up an Israeli front?

“All of a sudden, the sleeper front with Israel woke up. Two buses were attacked near Eilat, leaving seven Israelis dead; then, a Grad rocket was launched towards Ashdod, wounding six others. For its part, Israel did not miss the chance and raided Gaza and crossed the Egyptian border in an unprecedented breach,” chronicled Abdul Rahman Al Rashed in the pan-Arab Asharq Al Awsat.

Does this mess have anything to do with the embattled Syrian regime? the columnist asked. “Likely,” he answered.

Provoking Israel is one way to distract public attention from what’s going on in Syria. In fact, Bashar Al Assad’s regime has previously tried but failed to ignite conflict with Israel to achieve the same purpose.

In one instance, soon after the uprising in Syria began, pro-Assad factions mobilised a couple hundred youths – in the name of the Palestinian cause – to throw stones at Israeli soldiers across the border.

They were met with live Israeli bullets.

This time around, it is Hamas, the ruling Palestinian faction in the Gaza Strip and the ally of Damascus and Tehran, that has opened conflict with Israel, after a period of relative calm.

“Which is quite confusing,” the writer said. Agreeing to be used as a dust-kicking instrument by the Syrian regime will spell the end of Hamas.

Revolution’s thrill hasn’t worn off yet

Six months into the Egyptian revolution, the general landscape seems grim to many outsiders, but that’s not the real picture on the inside, wrote Moghazy el Badraoui, in a column for the Emirati newspaper Al Bayan on Friday.

Yes, there seems to be a great deal of instability in Egypt: security is not complete; the economy is collapsing; regional and international support for the revolution is iffy; divisions among political undercurrents are coming to the surface; the rat race for power is looking hazardous and the remnants of the old regime are still observable.

Yet, despite all of these stumbling blocks, an air of optimism is wafting around the Egyptian scene. “It is expressed both by the ordinary people on the street, and by the elite of politicians, intellectuals, artists and former and incumbent officials.

“Not a day goes by without a talk show guest being asked: ‘Are you optimistic about what’s going on in Egypt?’ And the answer is always swift and determined: ‘Yes I am very optimistic’,” he added.

There is something to justify this optimism. The deep thrill of having brought down an ironhanded 30-year-old regime has not yet worn off.

For many Egyptians, reassurance comes from this simple idea: whatever comes next can hardly be worse that what has already passed, and will be easy to overcome.

Turkey does better than Arabs on Somalia

Arab leaders must have been a little bit embarrassed to see the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, land in Mogadishu, the first Muslim leader to set foot in Somalia since famine, which now threatens to spread across the Horn of Africa, broke out, the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper said editorially on Friday.

Accompanied by four of his ministers, his wife and a delegation of business leaders and administrators, Mr Erdogan braved all the security hazards of an unstable Somalia to show material and moral support for four million Somalis at risk of dying of hunger.

“We haven’t seen any Arab leader take the trouble to travel there to show some sympathy for brothers afflicted with famine and disease,” the newspaper said.

True, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, held an emergency meeting in Istanbul and decided to allocate $350 million to fight famine in Somalia. “But it is also true that the initiative was put forward by the Turkish premier, who attended the meeting and played an important role in having the funds apportioned,” according to the paper.

It is undeniable that a number of Arab relief NGOs were quick to respond to the distress call from Somalia, but the Turkish leadership has acted more intelligently.
more…

2011-08-21 11:05:20

داود اوغلو: يجب محاربة المسلحين في سورية بطريقة لا يعاني فيها السكان المدنيون

“تركيا تعمل على مبدأ “عدم وجود أية مشاكل مع الجيران”, وان ما يحصل في الدولة المجاورة يعتبر بالنسبة لأنقرة شأنا سوريا داخليا”

قال وزير الخارجية التركي احمد داوود اوغلو انه يجب محاربة المسلحين في سورية بطريقة لا يعاني فيها السكان المدنيون, داعيا دمشق إلى الإيفاء بوعودها التي قطعتها خلال المباحثات مع تركيا وتوقف العمليات العسكرية في المدن فورا وتنتقل إلى الإصلاحات السياسية.

وقال داود اوغلو في مؤتمر صحفي مشترك عقده مع وزير خارجية جنوب أفريقيا ماييت نكوانا-ماشاباني السبت “عندما يجري الجيش السوري عمليات عسكرية في المدن، فان ذلك يذكر بتكتيك العقوبات الجماعية, يجب محاربة المسلحين بطريقة لا يعاني فيها السكان المدنيون”.

واتهمت العديد من التصريحات الرسمية التركية مؤخرا، القيادة السورية بـ “قتل المدنيين والمتظاهرين”، داعية إلى التخلي عن “النهج الأمني” في معالجة ما يجري من أحداث وتطورات في سورية، فيما انتقدت السلطات السورية بشدة الموقف التركي الذي لم يدين حتى الآن جرائم القتل “الوحشية” التي ارتكبتها الجماعات المسلحة بحق مدنيين وعسكريين وشرطة.

وتابع داود اوغلو, الذي يقوم بجولة افريقية, أن “تركيا تعمل على مبدأ “عدم وجود أية مشاكل مع الجيران”, وان ما يحصل في الدولة المجاورة يعتبر بالنسبة لأنقرة شأنا سوريا داخليا”, داعيا دمشق إلى “الإيفاء بوعودها التي قطعتها خلال المباحثات مع تركيا وتوقف العمليات العسكرية في المدن فورا وتنتقل إلى الإصلاحات السياسية”.

وكان داود اوغلو زار سورية في 9 آب الجاري لتسليم القيادة السورية رسالة تتعلق بالأحداث التي تشهدها سورية, حيث أجرى مباحثات مع الرئيس بشار الأسد تركزت على اتخاذ خطوات نحو الإصلاح.

وقال الرئيس الأسد لداود اوغلو خلال الزيارة إن سورية لن تتهاون في ملاحقة المجموعات الإرهابية المسلحة من أجل حماية استقرار الوطن وأمن المواطنين، لكنها مصممة أيضا على استكمال خطوات الإصلاح الشامل التي تقوم بها، وهي منفتحة على أي مساعدة تقدمها الدول الشقيقة والصديقة على هذا الصعيد.

وتشهد عدة مدن سورية، منذ بدء حركة الاحتجاجات الشعبية منتصف آذار الماضي، أعمال عنف أودت بحياة الكثيرين من مدنيين ورجال أمن وجيش، تقول السلطات إنهم قضوا بنيران “جماعات مسلحة”، فيما تتهم منظمات حقوقية وناشطين السلطات بارتكاب أعمال عنف لـ “قمع المتظاهرين”.

وترافقت هذه الأحداث مع إصدار حزمة من القوانين والإجراءات في إطار عملية إصلاح تأتي استجابة لحركة التظاهرات، أهمها رفع حالة الطوارئ وإلغاء محكمة أمن الدولة وصدور عفو يشمل معتقلي رأي، فيما شملت أهم القوانين التي صدرت مؤخرا قوانين الأحزاب والانتخابات والإدارة المحلية، بيد أن هذه الإجراءات لم تخفف من وطأة الاحتجاجات، المتزامنة مع أعمال عنف وتخريب.

سيريانيوز

اقرأ أيضا:

مصدر عسكري : استشهاد ضابطين وجرح 3 آخرين في كمين نصبته مجموعة مسلحة في حمص

سوريا الأسد 2011-08-21 13:48:11
اخيرآآآآآآآآآآآآآآآآآ
اخيرآ اطل علينا العثمانيون ليعترفوا بوجود المسلحين الذين يدعمونهم … عندما كانت الجيش والاعلام يقول بوجود مسلحين يخرج علينا ابناء الفوره ليضحكوا علينا وانهم شبيحه وغيره وغيره وها هو الان لايجد بدآ من الاعتراف لانه علم ان ما يحصل في سوريا سوف يكون له انعكاس على تركيا وايضآ ان سوريا اقوى مما كان يتصور هو ومن ارسله لتهديدنا … بقي بعض الأعراب ان يعودوا خائبين الى الحضن السوري من جديد كما هي العاده في كل مره …
سوريابشير 2011-08-21 13:43:23
المسكلة عم نشوف بعينا وماحدى خبرنا
المشكلة عم نشوف كيف الأمن والشبيحة عم يضربوا الرصاص على المتظاهرين السلميين, أو بمجرد خروجهم من الصلاة. والله لو ماعم نشوف هالشي كنا صدقنا شغلة العصابات المسلحة. حتى لو كان في عصابات مسلحة في بعض المناطق, في مناطق ماعم يكون فيها عصابات مسلحة ورغم هالشي في قتلى وعلى أيدي الأمن والشبيحة.
-سورياجورج 2011-08-21 13:24:20
ما بينعلق مع المعلم
والله هالاوغلو دايخ ما عم يعرف شو بدو مدري نو مدري عو ….خرجو الله لا يردو هيك يلي بدو يحط راسو براس وليد المعلم بدو يصير دايخ ؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟هذا الكلام للنشر ياسيريا نيوز وليس للتشفير كاالعادة
سورياسوري حزين 2011-08-21 12:58:40
بكفي لف ودوران
صار لكم 50 عاما في السلطة ولم تصلحو شيئا اتركو وارحلو عنا …..!!!!!!
-سورياشبيح أوغلو 2011-08-21 12:45:43
مسل ..شو
لا أصدق ما أسمعه مسل شو ، شو عمو أوغلوشو قلت عيد بالله شكلك عم تعترف اليوم انو في مسلحين ولك أخص وتفوه بس يا أكلين الهوا يا أندااااااال لك بعد مئات الشهداء اكتشفتوا أنو كان فيه مسلحين ولسه ولسه بيطلع كام **** بيقول ما فيه بس ما هيك هاد الخوف من حزب العمال يلي ماعم تستخدمو معهم غير القنابل الذكية والقنابل الانشطارية ومين بيعرف يمكن بكره نووي متل خ
-سورياحمصي 2011-08-21 12:49:51
قبضوا المعلوم
يبدو ان تركيا متلها متل غيرها قبضت وغيرت رأيها
-سورياالى اوغلو الفهمان 2011-08-21 12:44:26
مافي مسلحين
لو في مسلحين كانو طلعو ش بيان اي شو مسلحين من المريخ ؟؟؟؟؟؟ معقول مسلحين ماحدا شافون بس تركيا دائما هيك بتحاول تلمع صورتها ناح العالم
-سورياالذبح على الهوية في حمص 2011-08-21 12:44:17
فعلا”ألا تدرون ياسيريانيوز
ماذا يحدث على أرض الواقع أناأقطن في حمص.ابعثوا مراسليكم إلى المشفى الوطني وقيادة الشرطة بحمص لتجدواالجثث بالجملةو المفرق الرؤوس لوحدها والأيادي لوحدها مقطعة.وكل من يساهم في التغطية على الحقائق و الجرائم فهو مشترك بها هل تعلمون ماهو عدد الذين تم قتلهم في محافظة حمص لوحدها من غير المعارضين للدولة ؟إذا كنتم حقيقة لاتعلمون إذهبوا إلى قيادة شرطة حمص والمشفى الوطني واسألوا.فقط من المدنيين المؤيدين لمسيرة الاصلاح وغير المعارضين للدولة ثلاثمائة شهيد بحمص لوحدها
-سورياأي بداية عصر نعيش؟! 2011-08-21 12:42:11
بداية نهاية من؟ و بداية من؟
تقول سوري للعظم!ويحك!هل تقف مع الذين يذبحون البشر في مدينةحمص ويقطعهونهم ويقتلعون عيونهم فقط لأنهم من غير المعارضين للدولةوعلى الهويةالطائفية!أي سوري أنت؟!وأي عظم وصلت إليه؟!فعلا”سكاكينكم وسواطيركم قطّعت لحم من هو ليس مجرم مثلكم ووصلت سكاكينكم وسواطيركم إلى العظم لا بل كسرت العظم واقتلعت العيون وفتحتم مسلخافي باب السباع قرب قلعةحمص يارافعي العلم الاسرائيلي لقد ذاب الثلج وبان الوسخ الذي تقفون عليه عندما كشف الظواهري أنكم تعملون تحت قيادته كما يوجد مسلخ آخرفي باب الدريب تحت اشراف السيدة أم خالد
-سورياخبر عاجل 2011-08-21 12:40:07
الجيش السوري يقتحم كفرتخاريم من مناطق ادلب
الجيش السوري يقتحم كفرتخاريم من مناطق ادلب على الحدود مع تركيا. لا وجود للمسلحين و لا وجود للعصابات. الاقتحام لوجود رأي أخر.
-سورياأخيرا” اعترف بوجب محاربة المسلحين المجرمين 2011-08-21 12:38:03
أوغلو يقول يجب قتل المجرمين الارهابين القتلة
لايجوز المساواة بين قوات حفظ النظام والشرطة وأجهزة الأمن والجيش الذين جميعمهم من كافة أطياف البلد و الشعب كله ويعملون على إعادة الاستقرار والأمن للبلد والشعب وبين الارهابيين المخربين القتلة المجرمين الذين يعيثون فساداويحرقون ويكسرون ويدمرون المنشآت العامة والخاصة بدون وجه حق ويقتلون على الهويةالطائفية ويذبحون بالسواطير ويقتلعون العيون من شدة الحقد الطائفي أحيطك علما ياسيدي أن الجيش والدولة لا تتحرك على دوافع طائفية عكس المتظاهرين الذين يقتلون على خلفية طائفية
-سوريا
copy rights © syria-news 2010

Scientists are being killed in Syria as it was in Iraq,

2011-08-20 21:57:39

استشهاد ثلاثة من العاملين في البحوث العلمية وجرح رابع برصاص مسلحين

استشهد ثلاثة من العاملين في البحوث العلمية وأصيب رابع إثر إطلاق نار من قبل مسلحين مجهولين يوم الثلاثاء الماضي على السيارة التي كانت تقلهم على أوتوستراد حلب دمشق بالقرب من خان شيخون .

وقال مصدر مطلع لسيريانيوز ” استشهد ثلاثة من العاملين في البحوث العلمية و أصيب رابع يوم الثلاثاء خلال إطلاق نار على السيارة التي كانت تقلهم بالقرب من خان شيخون “.

و أشار المصدر إلى أن ” إطلاق النار الغزير على السيارة أدى إلى استشهاد ثلاثة فوراً وإصابة رابع ما زال يتلقى العلاج في العناية المركزة “.

يشار إلى أن وحدات من الجيش العربي السوري تعمل على تأمين الطريق العام المذكور وقد اشتبكت أكثر من مرة مع مجموعات مسلحة .

سيريانيوز

نعيم 2011-08-21 13:24:41
غريبة
يعني انا مستغرب من أغلب التعليقات وكانو الناس بتشوف شي وبتحكي شي تاني يعني الشغلة صارت واضحة أهل البلد مو كلون متل بعض وأغلب الأرياف في سوريا عندهن ببيوتون سلاح وهاد حكي أكيد لأن السلاح عز ولي عايش بالمدينة يسأل أما بالنسبة للمسلحين فهن ناس متلكون متلون بس ماعاد بدون هل نظام لأسبابون الخاصة وقرروا يغيروه بهي الطريقة والشغلة مابدها كل واحد يكذب التاني ونسب ببعض يعني مو ناقصنا تفكك وبالنهاية الكل على خطأ وعاشت سوريا
-سوريامن قلب الحدث 2011-08-21 12:26:11
للي عم يقول انو مافي مسلحين
انا من خان شيخون وفي مسلحين عالطريق من جبل الزاويةعم يعملو على قطع الاتوستراد والسرقة والنهب الله ينتقم منهن يا رب
-سوريا/حمد كمال الجفا 2011-08-21 12:03:46
مو هيك الثورة يا خونة
عملية استهداف أشخاص مدنيين يقدمون خدمات جليلة للدولة وللأمن القومي السوري وهم ليس لهم علاقة بأي عمليات قتالية أو عسكرية ضد المتظاهرين السلمييين كما يدعون ,من ارتكب هذا العمل حكما مرتبط بجهات خارجية دولة أو منظمات تخريبية تعمل على تفتتيت البلد من الداخل وهم أخطر من العدو الخارجي , الرجاء من القيادة الحكيمة الضرب بيد من حديد وبلا رحمة على هؤلاء القتلة المجمرين وملاحقتهم في عقر دارهم وتصفيتهم لأن التسامح والرحمة والرأفة اللتي تظهرها القيادة أدت الى تمادي هؤلاء في القتل والتخريب
سورياibrahim 2011-08-21 12:03:23
دخيل الله على هالمصادر
شباب بتتذكروا السيرفيس اللي فيه عمال جايين من لبنان و تعرض لهجوم من جماعات مسلحة ارهابية عند مصفاه حمص رغم انو الجيش كان محاصر حمص. بتعرفو بعدين مين طلعوا هالجماعات؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟
-سورياابو صادق 2011-08-21 11:55:21
عصابات الحكومة
سوريا فبل الثورات في الدول العربية كانت تعيش في امن وأمان . لايوجد لاعصابات مسلحة ولا غير مسلحة . أحس المواطنين السوريين بأنهم مثلهم مثل باقي الشعوب هم بحاجة الى الديمقراطيةوالمزيد من الحرية لماذا لايكونون مثل باقي الشعوب في فرنسا بريطانيا المانياكل دول اوروبا . هذا الإحساس لدى السوريين يتنافى تمامامع أهداف وقواعد الحكومة السورية .ولذلك كل مانشاهده من عصابات مسلحة من قتل من اغتيالات هي من صنيع الحكومة السورية وهي تتحمل كامل المسؤلية عما يجري لانه من تدبيرها . حكومة متعجرفة متكبرة عل
-سوريامحمد 2011-08-21 12:01:16
حرام
حرام اللي عم يصير عم ينقتل خيرة شباب سوريا صيادلة ودكاترة وطلاب جامعة الصيدلي جمال بحمص حرقولو صيدليتو وقتلوا بوادي الذهب الله يرحمو وينتقم من اللي قتلوا وعم يضلو القتلة الاغبياء المأجورين (الشبيحة)
-سورياzz 2011-08-21 11:43:52
أكيد في مسلحين وحضرة الأخ نايم بالعسل
أنا أسكن في ريف دمشق وأوكد لكم هناك مسلحين ودخلو الى المنطقة على أنهم عمال بناء وبعد يومين هم نفسهم حاولوا الاعتداء بالسلاح أو اغتيال أحد الضباط ولكن التقطتهم يد الأمن قبل تحقيق ذلك ونعلم جيداً أنهم مدربون على القنص وحمل السلاح والشخص الذي كانو يعملون عنده طلب للمفرزة وتعرف عليهم أيضاً
سورياكلية الهندسة الزراعية في جامعة تشرين 2011-08-21 11:45:52
تحية لارواح شهداء الوطن والعلم
طلاب كلية الهندسة الزراعية في جامعة تشرين يتقدمون من اهالي الشهداء ومن الهيئة العامة للبحوث العلمية الزراعية باحر التعازي…وناكد اننا ماضون باذن الله في سبيل تطوير البحث العلمي ورفع مستوى وطننا الغالي الى الافضل ( الهيئة الادارية لكلية الهندسة الزراعية في جامعة تشرين )
-سوريازهرة 2011-08-21 11:26:15
خسارة
الله يرحمهم ويعوض اهلهم وبلدنا لانها خسارة وطنية لا يستفيد منها الا الاعداء وكلمة للجيش عليكم بسد كل الثغرات التي ينفذ منها الارهابييين و تأمين ليس فقط الطرقات بل كل سوريا والله المستعان
-سوريابنت البلد 2011-08-21 10:59:25
رد للسيد كموز
ياسييد كموز أفندي كأنك مو عايش بالبلدأو بيجوز عايش وعميانة عيونك عالأحداث يلي عم تصير بتمنى تفتح عيونك منيح
-سورياأم نظارة 2011-08-21 10:52:47
عمل قذر واجرامي
ان قتل أناس يعملون في البحوث العلمية هو عمل ارهابي مخطط له مسبقاً،وليس بالعملية العشوائية ،وهذا كله لكي لاتقوم لهذا البلد قائمة.لعنة الله على كل الارهابيين القتلة ،لعنة الله على الأمريكان والاسرائليين وكل من يتعاون معهم.
-سورياامين 2011-08-21 10:35:23
ماحدا لحدا
يعني صرلنا شي سنتين عم نحكي بالموضوع هاد وكل الناس عم تعلق بس الظاهر انو الكل ما بيفهم بالرياضه وبس فاروق سريه بيفهم .. لك الله يعين هالبلد السوس واصل للعصب ومافي حل … ولا حل … نهائيا … ولاااااااااااااااا حل ع الخالص
-سورياقلبي عالبلد 2011-08-21 10:29:42
ان لله وان اليه راجعون
مصيبة كبرى إذا كان القتلة يقصدون من كان بالسيارة 0 فالشهداء هم من يبني البلد ويقويهاويطور أبحاثها … والقتلة لا يعرفون ماذا يريدون ومن يقتلون ولماذا يقتلون . راحت عالبلد وعلى شباب البلد وبالنهاية هيك بدّو الغرب نقتل بعضنا.
سوريامواطنة شريفة 2011-08-21 09:33:53
دعوة من قلب صائمة
الله يكسر ايديكون الله لا يوفقكون الله يحرمكون صحتكون و عافيتكون و راحة بالكون متل ماعملتو فينا الله ينتقم منكم و من كل مين بدو خراب هالبلد اللهم رد كيدهم بنحرهم للهم رد كيدهم بنحرهم اللهم رد كيدهم بنحرهم , الله يقويك و ينصرك على مين بيعاديك يا سيادة الرئيس و يوجهك للصواب و الطريق الصحيح يارب دعوة من قلب صايمة محروق قلبا عالبلد
-سورياعلاء 2011-08-21 09:24:44
دمشق
سلمية سلمية سلمية
-سورياسوري 2011-08-21 09:09:47
لازم حل
لازم يلي بيحمل حجرة ضد الدولة بتقوس فورا لانو يلي عم بيصير عيب جدا , كل اهل خان شيخون **لانو هنون اكتر ناس مستفيدين من السلطة و رغم ذلك عم يعملوا مشاكل لانون طائفيين جدا
سورياكمال 2011-08-21 09:06:41
اكيد الخبر مكتوب بالسيريا نيوز
شيء جيد ان تعترف سيريا نيوز انه مسلحين اطلقوا النار وعلى من على شباب يعملون في البحوث العلميه يعني من خيرة شباب سورياالمتفوقين حتى يعرف السوريين اولا واخيرا ثوار الارهاب ماذا يريدون من سوريا هل هذا يعني الاصلاح هل هذا يعني الحريه .رحم الله الشهداء
-سورياكموزو 2011-08-21 09:08:04
مسلحين
و الله اللي بيسمع هالقصص بيصق يعني نحنى شوي تانية اللي عايشين بالبلد حنصدق انو في مسلحين عنا اي بالشام أوووف شو في مسلحين راح صدق شوي تانية خفو علينا اتحدى واحدينبق راسو من الشباك يقول الله بنص الليل و الشرطة كلها نايمة متل الجني الأزرق بيطلعلو رجل امن و 50 عوني و بينعفط لسا بتقلولي مسلحين بالله انت الذي تسمع تعليقي شاور حالك هيك يعني بنص الليل تقول الله أكبر بس مو تطلق قذيفة ؟؟ ما بتخاف من الجيران ههههه كشو الكشة وصدقوها و بدهم يبلعونا ياها بالزور يا اخي مافي مافي مسلحين
-سورياسوري 2011-08-21 08:22:54
برافو
الف رحمة على الشعداء وبرافو سيريا نيوز اعترافكم بالمجموعات المسلحة بشكل مباشر:::::يشار إلى أن وحدات من الجيش العربي السوري تعمل على تأمين الطريق العام المذكور وقد اشتبكت أكثر من مرة مع مجموعات مسلحة .:::::
-سوريابنت البلد 2011-08-21 07:44:19
سيريا نيوز -للنشر
الله يرحمن و تفوووووووووه ع هالقتلة المجرمون
-سوريامن المستفيد 2011-08-21 07:03:36
المظاهرات تغطية
هذا النوع من الاستهداف المبيت والخبيث لا يمكن ان ينجح الا على ايدي جماعات عالية التدريب والحرفية و سواء كان المتظاهرون متواطئين ام لا فهم في حكم التواطوء و يجب استخدام كل الوسائل المكنة لبترهم ووءد ماربهم ليس هناك حل سلمي او حضاري بعد اليوم
-سورياالمحقق غادجيت 2011-08-21 05:57:33
الله يرحمهم بس وين الأسماء؟
الله يتغمدهم برحمته الواسعة، لكن أين الاسماء؟ لي أصدقاء في البحوث العلمية في حلب وإدلب وأخشى أن يكون أحدهم ….
-سورياناصح أمين 2011-08-21 05:53:02
بحوث في أي مجال؟؟
ما هو نوع البحوث التي يقومون بها؟ الله يخرب بيت هالعراعير العملاء.
-سوريا
copy rights © syria-news 2010

Aboud #17,

Niceeee.. I like it.. Rami 7aroof.. 🙂
The opposition is brilliant. It’s just as someone had released a stuck cork, and gallons of creativity are pouring.
.

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معارضون يهاجمون فكرة المجالس الانتقالية في سوريا

بهية مارديني GMT 22:00:00 2011 السبت 20 أغسطس

لقطة من فيديو نشر على موقع يوتيوب لتظاهرة ضد النظام السوري في درعا جنوبا في 19 اب/اغسطس 2011

انتقد معارضون سوريون بشدة فكرة تأسيس مجالس انتقالة في سوريا من قبل بعض المعارضين لنظام الرئيس بشار الأسد، وقال ناشطون إن الهرولة نحو هذه المجالس هو لاقتسام الكعكة فقط وأن المشاركين فيها يريدون الحصول على المناصب فقط.

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قوبلت أفكار سباق المعارضة السورية نحو مجلس انتقالي بالكثير من الهجوم الى درجة أن البعض اعتبرها ” محاولات لاغتيال الثورة في سوريا” .
ويرى المعارض السوري أشرف المقداد في تصريح خاص لـ”ايلاف” أن ما يحدث هو “سباق مخزي لتأليف مجالس انتقالية سورّية. وقال:” وكل من يتسابقون لم نسمع بهم قبل 15 آذار ، انهم فجأة اشتموا رائحة المناصب وأغرتهم قطع الكيك، رغم أن هذا موجود في عقولهم فقط بينما المعركة الحقيقية في الداخل السوري”.
وأضاف” المجلس الانتقالي بهذا الشكل فضيحة لمن يقومون به ويتعاملون معه اذ ليس لديهم احترام لشهدائنا ” ، واعتبر “أنهم يصرفون الملايين على مؤتمرات وهمية بينما المفروض أن يدعموا الشعب السوري في الداخل “، وقال” يكفي هذا ، ومن المفروض ان يتم تأجيل اعلان أي مجلس حتى يصبح هناك قرار واحد ونريد اناسا لهم تاريخ ويمثلون الداخل فعلا” .

وقال المقداد “أنهم ينظرون الى التجربة الليبية ويريدون تطبيقها على سوريا الا ان هناك فرقا كبيرا”.

من جانبه قال المعارض السوري سمير سطوف في تصريح خاص لـ”ايلاف” أن “تعدد المجالس الانتقالية هو أمر مرفوض فهذه المجالس بقدر مايفترض أن تلبي حاجة موضوعية لدعم الثورة في الداخل فهي تعقد الوضع. حسب قوله مضيفا:” تعدد المجالس سوف يستفيد منها النظام ، وستدخل كل دولة غربية في مباحثاتها على المجلس الذي يروق لها مما لن يشكل أية فائدة للثورة في سوريا وسوف نضيّع عبر مثل هذه المجالس الهدف ونسيء للمعارضة” .

واعتبر “أن كل شخص يفتش الان عن موقع واغلبهم من الانتهازيين وليس هناك بينهم وطني حقيقي ، واشار الى انهم يبحثون عن اكل الكعكة بينما الطحين لم يتواجد بعد ويبحثون عن دور ومواقع بطريقة يتخلون فيها عن الدماء الطاهرة ، فليذهب اي منصب للجحيم في ظل الرغبة بسقوط النظام “.

بدوره قال المعارض السوري أبو الضاد سالم السالم لـ”ايلاف” أنه بالنسبة للمجلس الوطني الذي سيتم الإعلان عنه يوم الاحد، وأضاف:” لماذا هذا الإستعجال من المعارضة وكأن تشكيل هذا المجلس سيحل مشاكل الثورة مباشرةً “، وأضاف “ثم من الأصداء التي وصلتني ،فإن تشكيل هذا المجلس سيكون على أساس المحاصصة وهو ما يتناقض مع شعار الثورة ولا يصب في مصلحتها”.

وتساءل أيضا” كيف يمكن تشكيل مجلس من مؤتمرات فاشلة لم تقدم للثورة إلا مزيداً من الانقسام.?”
ـ واختتم بالقول “إن المعارضات في الخارج تتسابق لتشكيل المجالس ولم تأخذ رأي الداخل من معارضة وتنسيقيات، وأعتقد ان تشكيل الهيئة العامة للثورة جاء في الوقت المناسب ليقطع الطريق امام جميع المعارضات” ، معتبرا “ان تشتت المعارضة السورية في الداخل والخارج يؤثر على اداء هذه الثورة ،ولهذا يجب لم شملها في إطار موحد يكون مزكى من الداخل ، و ذلك لأن الثورة تمر الأن بوقت عصيب يستدعي تكاتف جميع مكونات الشعب السوري لتفويت مخططات النظام “.

الى ذلك قالت مصادر على الحدود السورية التركية لـ”ايلاف” أنه تم اليوم أطلاق طلقات رشاشة على منطقة خربة الجوز الواقعة على الشريط الحدودي مع تركيا والذي يتواجد ويخيم فيها مجموعة كبيرة من الهاربين من بطش قوات النظام وهم من القرى القريبة ومن القري التابعة لأدلب.

وأكدت المصادر “انه منذ الأمس واليوم ازدادت اطلاق النار من الجانب السوري وتم الطلاق قذائف وصل منها الى داخل الاراضي التركية خمسة منها وتم الكشف على المنطقة من قبل قوات الجيش التركي وتصوير المناطق التي وسقطت فيها القذائف”. .

وأشارت المصادر الى” أن هناك تحرك لقوات الجيش والأمن في منطقة دركوش المحاذية للشريط الحدودي والمعروف ان منطقة خربة الجوز و ومنطقة دركوش من الممرات الهامة لتهريب المنشقين والمدنيين الهاربين من قوات الأمن والشبيحة”.

فيما تحدثت وسائل الاعلام الالكترونية السورية الى أن الرئيس بشار الأسد سيتوجه إلى شعبه غداً الأحد , عبر لقاء تلفزيوني على الفضائية السورية من المقرر أن يتحدث خلالهُ عن الأحداث والأوضاع الجارية في البلاد منذ خمسة أشهر.
وقالت المتحدثة باسم رئاسة قسم الإعلام الخارجي, ريم حداد , لصحيفة “واشنطن بوست” انه من المتوقع أن يتوجه الرئيس الأسد بخطاب إلى الشعب السوري في الأيام القليلة المقبلة ,يتحدث فيه عن الخطوات الجديدة في خطته الإصلاحية.

http://www.elaph.com/Web/news/2011/8/677318.html

إغلاق النافذة

Syrian townspeople welcome army to rout “gangs”
Published: 21 August, 2011, 10:33
http://rt.com/news/army-assad-syria-gangs-645/

This week pressure has been mounting again on the Syrian leader Bashar Assad. The US and European leaders called on him to step down, but Russia refused to support the demand, saying Assad should be given time to implement promised reforms.

­The pressure has come in response to a military crackdown on anti-regime protesters. But as RT’s Maria Finoshina reports from the frontline, while the West sees the government’s action as oppression, some in Syria see it as a liberation.

Deir Ez-Zor in the East of the country has become the last Syrian city the army left after clearing out extremists that had been terrorizing its residents for weeks, the military claim.

“These bandits blocked the roads, put up barricades. It became a ghost-city – we were hiding, we were just like hostages,” a local resident told RT.

Soldiers of the Syrian army are leaving the city of Deir Ez-Zor near the Iraqi border. The military says the operation there is now over – the city has been freed from armed groups. People are welcoming them as the victors.

But while tanks have been trying to make their way through jubilant crowds, thousands of kilometers away, in the White House, a decision has already matured. President Bashar Assad is seen the one who is terrorizing the Syrian people, and that should end.

“The transition to democracy in Syria has begun, and it’s time for Assad to get out of the way,” the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.

Not everybody has agreed though. Moscow has insisted that Assad should be given time to implement promised changes. His recent decisions to release political prisoners, repeal emergency laws, and allow peaceful demonstrations have indicated the right direction. But external pressure could still crush the fragile transition.

“Reforms will give force to Syria, it will make the country stronger. But Syria’s enemies don’t want Syria to be strong, America for instance,” says Anwar Raja, a political analyst from Deir Ez-Zor. “They are sick and tired of a strong Syria, and they want to weaken it. They don’t want reforms – they need instability and chaos across the country, as long as possible, and their pressure works for it.”

With contradictory reports about policemen and security officers killed across the country and the army’s continuing crackdown on protestors, despite President Assad’s pledges to the UN to stop military operations, the Syrian people no longer know who to trust and what to believe. With their country at the crossroads again, their only weapon is patience

UN mission visits Syria
Aug 21, 2011 13:19 Moscow Time
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/08/21/54954162.html
The UN humanitarian mission has arrived in Syria to see the outcome of anti-government riots.

A UN delegation led by Rashid Khalikov of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs will stay in Syria for 3-4 days.

Damascus has promised free access to the country to all UN inspectors.

Apart from this, the Syrian government says it is going to amend the constitution, reform the parliament election process and announce amnesty for some prisoners.

Earlier Russia did not approve of the US initiative to demand Syria`s leader Bashar Assad to step down.

Moscow says that Syria should be given time to implement reform

The rats are about to prevail.
The germs are multiplying and showing increasing antibiotic resistance.
Cheers
Long live the Rats and Germs of this World

Robert Fisk: It’s his fast-disappearing billions that will worry Assad, not words from Washington
Friday, 19 August 2011
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-its-his-fastdisappearing-billions-that-will-worry-assad-not-words-from-washington-2340268.html
Nearly 10 per cent of Syria’s deposits went in the first four months of 2011, some ending up in Lebanese banks

Obama roars. World trembles. If only.

Obama says Assad must “step aside”. Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle Tom Cobley and all (except, of course, Israel – another story). The terrible triplets – Cameron, Sarkozy and Merkel – did their mimicking act a few minutes later.
But truly, are new sanctions against Assad “and his cronies” – I enjoyed the “cronies” bit, a good old 1665 word as I’m sure Madame Clinton realised, although she was principally referring to Bashar’s businessman cousin Rami Makhlouf – anything more than the usual Obama hogwash? If “strong economic sanctions” mean a mere freeze on petroleum products of Syrian origin, the fact remains that Syria can scarcely produce enough oil for itself, let alone for export. A Swedish government agency recently concluded that Syria was largely unaffected by the world economic crisis – because it didn’t really have an economy.

Of course, in the fantasy of Damascus – where Bashar appears to live in the same “sea of quietness” in which the Egyptian writer Mohamed Heikel believes all dictators breathe – the world goes on as usual. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – another earth-trembler if ever there was one – no sooner demands an “immediate” end to “all military operations and mass arrests”, than dear old Bashar tells him that “military and police action” has stopped.

Well, blow me down, as the Syrian population must now be saying. So what were all those reports coming in yesterday from Syria, of widespread gunfire in Latakia, of troops looting private property in the city, of a man arrested in his hospital bed in Zabadani, of snipers still on the rooftops of government buildings in Deir el-Zour? Crimes against humanity? Needless to say, the Syrian government knows nothing about this.

Besides, hasn’t Gaddafi been accused of “crimes against humanity”? Wasn’t he supposed to have “stepped aside” six months ago? And isn’t Gaddafi – a little more fragile now, of course – still in Tripoli? And this is after months of Nato bombardment, something that Bashar has nothing to worry about. Well, well, well.

Bashar will also have noticed a weird mantra adopted by the Great Roarer of Washington. Repeatedly, Assad was told by Obama to “step aside” – never “step down” – and to “get out of the way”, whatever that means. Intriguingly, Madame Clinton used the phrase “step down” yesterday afternoon – and then immediately corrected herself to “step aside”.

The Great and the Good don’t use these phrases by chance. The implication still seems to be that “step aside” might allow Bashar to stay in Syria but let others take over, rather go on the run with a war crimes tribunal hanging over his head. Which is what, I suspect, yesterday’s roaring was all about.

The real fear for Bashar is not oil sanctions but banks – especially the £12bn in foreign reserves that existed in Syria’s Central Bank in February, a sum which is now being depleted by around £50m a week. In May, Syria’s foreign minister – the mighty (physically) Walid Moallem – asked Baghdad for cheap Iraqi oil. Nearly 10 per cent of Syria’s banking deposits disappeared in the first four months of 2011; £1.8bn was withdrawn, some of it ending up in Lebanese banks.

All in all, then, a nasty economic climate in which to go on bashing your own people. So who cares what Obama says? Certainly not the Syrians, which is why they are now trying to set up a “High Commission for Leading the Revolution” to co-ordinate protesters in the country’s provinces.

This will indeed also worry Assad, who will have to send his spooks out to identify members of this “high commission” (which sounds unhappily like a colonial name) so they can spend some rest-and-recreation in the Latakia sports stadium under friendly interrogation from the state security police.

Like Robert Fisk on The Independent on Facebook for updates

Some highlights from Norman @22. Thanks Norman

وكل من يتسابقون لم نسمع بهم قبل 15 آذار ، انهم فجأة اشتموا رائحة
المناصب وأغرتهم قطع الكيك

م من الأصداء التي وصلتني ،فإن تشكيل هذا المجلس سيكون على أساس المحاصصة وهو ما يتناقض مع شعار الثورة ولا يصب في مصلحتها”.

كيف يمكن تشكيل مجلس من مؤتمرات فاشلة لم تقدم للثورة إلا مزيداً من
الانقسام.?”
ـ واختتم بالقول “إن المعارضات في الخارج تتسابق لتشكيل المجالس ولم تأخذ رأي الداخل من معارضة وتنسيقيات، وأعتقد ان تشكيل الهيئة العامة للثورة جاء في الوقت المناسب ليقطع الطريق امام جميع المعارضات” ، معتبرا “ان تشتت المعارضة السورية في الداخل والخارج يؤثر على اداء هذه الثورة ،ولهذا يجب لم شملها في إطار موحد يكون مزكى من الداخل ، و ذلك لأن الثورة تمر الأن بوقت عصيب يستدعي تكاتف جميع مكونات الشعب السوري لتفويت مخططات النظام “.

الى ذلك قالت مصادر على الحدود السورية التركية لـ”ايلاف”

Iran and Syria orchestrated the terrorist attacks on southern Israel
Elias Bejjani – 8/19/2011
http://www.globalpolitician.com/27047-iran-syria-israel-terrorism
It is well known to all Middle East analysts and specialists as well as to Western and Arab countries that the majority of the terrorist and jihadist organizations all over the world, including al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas, are mere military tools and proxies that are found, financed, used, sponsored and fully controlled by rogue and dictatorial regimes, especially the two notorious regimes of Syria and Iran.

In this context, the bloody terrorist attacks that took place in southern Israel on Thursday August 18/11 need to be dealt with as mere Syrian and Iranian criminal and war acts. Accordingly, both countries’ leadership must be held fully accountable for all the human loses and damages.

Debkafile’s website’s military sources in a detailed report on the attacks (18.08.11) estimated that Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah experts may have aided the terrorists in setting up the complex operation. http://www.debka.com/article/21217/

The Syrian regime intended the attacks to detract the Arabic and global political pressures that President al-Assad is facing because of his ongoing criminal atrocities against the peaceful Syrian public uprising that has been escalating for the last five months and is seriously threatening to topple his regime.

In the same realm, Iran which also is encountering immense internal and worldwide setbacks and problems did not dare to ask its militant proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to attack Israel as al-Assad has been requesting because of the very serious Israeli warnings. Israel has made it very clear that her army will respond with extreme military harshness to any stupid Hezbollah attacks and stressed the fact that its response will include Syria itself.

Meanwhile, putting an end to such crimes necessitates a solid, united and crystal clear worldwide approach towards both the Syrian and Iranian axis of evil regimes. Sadly, the Western countries and all the Arab states are still indecisive on this matter, especially the Obama administration that against all odds is still appeasing and cajoling the criminal rulers of both countries. It took President Obama five months to finally call on Syria’s Dictator Bashar al-Assad to step down, but at the same time stressing the fact that his administration doesn’t have the means to force al-Assad to do so.

One cannot rationally dissociate Syria and Iran from terrorism all over the world. Both countries provide a safe haven for a myriad of terrorist organizations, (Hezbollah, Hamas and many others), direct their operations, and use Hezbollah’s and the Palestinians’ ministates in Lebanon as their main field of recruiting, training and operations.

Like the Mafia which uses money, crime, fear, intimidation, and violence as instruments of pressure to buy silence from otherwise good and honorable people, the Syrian and Iranian regimes use their proxy terrorist organizations (Hamas, Hezbollah and new versions of al-Qaeda) as instruments of pressure on their neighboring countries and as bargaining tools in their foreign policy strategies that have earned them a “no questions asked” attitude from the Free World with regard to their bloody interference in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, South America and many other countries. In 1983, Syrian and Iranian terrorist proxies were responsible for bloody attacks against the American embassy, marine compound and French troops in Lebanon costing hundreds of Lebanese, French and American lives.

The Lebanese Canadian Coordinating Council (LCCC) without any reservations fully shares, adopts and supports the Canadian government’s official stance and statement that addressed the terrorist attacks on southern Israel. Our Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s statement of condemnation stated: “Canada condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks in southern Israel today. These cowardly attacks, particularly on civilian targets, are abhorrent and criminal. “On behalf of all Canadians, I send my heartfelt condolences to those affected by today’s vicious attacks. “Israel has a right to defend itself against such terrorist acts in conformity with international humanitarian law. Those responsible for these horrific attacks must be held accountable.”

In conclusion, not even one country in the world could be safe from terrorism and its debilitating cancer. This solid reality must motivate all countries to take an active role in the global fight against terrorism and help the Lebanese people to liberate their country that is occupied by the terrorist Iran- Syrian Hezbollah militia.

Elias Bejjani is a human rights activist, journalist & political commentator who writes for the Global Politician about issues concerning Lebanon. He is the Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF) and the Media Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
E-Mail: phoenicia@hotmail.com LCCC Web Site: http://www.10452lccc.com

11. Dear syau,
Regarding the “Video that Shows Gunmen Killing Policeman in Homs
http://www.sana.sy/eng/337/2011/08/20/365077.htm
HOMS, (SANA)- The Syrian Television on Saturday broadcast a video showing members of armed terrorist groups shooting the policeman Ra’ed Ashour dead in al-Hamidiyeh street in the city of Homs

You have missed the rebuttal “that I posted earlier #163. Here it is:

Rebuttal statement by “Union of Homs Neighbourhoods” of the Syrian TV video claims that captured the assassination of policeman Raed 3ashoor.
1. We promptly reported the incident at the time.
2. The young policeman was assassinated by security agents, in an open place, less than 700 meters of the Command of City Police and 100 meters from the nearby Security checkpoint of Bab Tudmor. The timing, Friday night means no cars could enter city centre without being stopped and inspected at security check points.
3. The incident took place in a central, open and well trafficked area, conveniently covered by a fixed camera, and at a time when scores of people were emerging from Taraweeh prayers.
4. The white Kea sedan with license plate 40441 is well known to people of Homs.
5. It has been used in shooting at people many times before. It always comes from security guarded checkpoints!
6. Having failed to produce a single credible video of armed resistance in the city, the regime has sought to stage this assassination to blame it on city people, in order to justify its invasion of city neighbourhoods.
7. The people of Homs city condemn the killing of people and the invasion of the city.
إتحاد أحياء مدينة حمص – الثورة السورية 2011
رد أهالي حمص على الفيدو الذي عرضه تلفزيون النظام الموصوف بالسورية
عرض تلفزيون النظام فيديو لرجل شرطة يدعى رائد عاشور وسيارة كيا ريو بيضاء فيها شخصين قاما بإطلاق النار عليه مما أدى إلى وفاته من ساعتها:
أولاً: لقد نوهنا في تقرير يوم السبت الماضي عن ملخص أحداث حمص أن رجال الأمن قاموا بقتل الشاب المذكرو في مكان مكشوف يبعد عن قيادة شرطة حمص أقل من 700متر وعن حاجز باب تدمر أقل من 200 متر, وفي وسط المدينة… التي لايدخلها يوم الجمعة في وقت الليل سيارة إلا ويتم تفتيشها.
ثانياً: لقد تمت عملية القتل في وسط شارع الحميدية وفي منطقة مكشوفة لخلق كثير في وسط حمص, الساعة العاشرة والنصف, في وقت خروج الناس من صلاة التراويح, وتم تصويرها من مكان يكشف العملية تماماً وبكاميرا ثابتة, فإما أن الأمن هو من قام بالعملية أو أنه أراد من كل الناس أن ترى وتسمع بالقصة وعرف قبل وقت بوقوعها فوضع تلك الكاميرت لفرط ذكائه!!.
ثالثاً: إن سيارة الكيا ريو البيضاء التي تحمل الرقم (40441) هي سيارة معروفة من قبل أهل حمص وقد نفذت أكثر من مرة عمليات إطلاق نار على الناس وكانت نقطة إنطلاقها وعودتها هي الحواجز الأمنية الموجودة في الأحياء.
رابعاً: بعد أن فشل النظام بتطبيق أو تركيب فيديو واحد لمسلحين في مدينة حمص كعادتها قبل اجتياح مدينة أو منطقة, عمد عشية اجتياحه للمدينة بتنفيذ هذه العملية وتصويرها لتبرير إجرامه وأعماله.
خامساً: إن أهل حمص يرفضون عمليات القتل التي يقوم بها النظام و ترفض اجتياحه للمدينة تحت حجج واهية ومكشوفة.

15. AMIR
Iron Dome intercepts 9 Grad rockets above Beer Sheva last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1FTlHsmnmc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jzAupr044

Do you think really that the stolen simple principle of physics shall provide safety! FONDLY! some boxes of preservation will appear all is amazed

From previous post by Tara#116

“Based on above statistics and if you live in the US or Russia, you should plan from now where you want your kids to immigrate. That is called long term planning… The problem is, we Muslims are ubiquitous. We are everywhere and we bite.”

“We are everywhere and we bite”?!?

bite or (edited for inappropriate language),tara you just unmasked your ugly face
to the contrary tara!the right wing parties are on the rise in western countries,,,,soon they take power,you wont even have a chance to seeze,extremist like you would be forced out back to their barbaric caves

the west are aware of muslims game plan.

http://youtu.be/12AsSjrbTjk

So, how’s your friend Qaddafi doing these days? LOL! 🙂

Amazing how it all fell apart for him in the space of 3 weeks.

Islamophobes are so blinded by their hatred that render them even incapable of understanding sarcasm.

Meanwhile to the many islamophobes on this site, go ahead, Join an European right wing party and plot to take over the world. It will get you no where, but may help venting your hate and anger.

Even to be more sarcastic, plan to have your children building communities on the moon. This would be the only place so far you can’t find Muslims.

And finally, I do not have ugly face. I am pretty good looking.

Tara

“And finally, I do not have ugly face. I am pretty good looking.”

They just hate us because we are beautiful. I’m betting Hamster is the Brad Pitt of the rodent world.

Moderator you need to review the filth in yesterdays last two posts (174 and 175)

Dear Aboud, Thanks for pointing out that the demonstrators don’t want the Arab governments to intervene militarily.

Of course Saddam was responsible for the sanctions as were the governments that imposed them. The point is not about responsibility. It is about the result. We can see where we are headed. The government will not go down peacefully, whether sanctions are applied or not. We know it would never step aside, or it would have done so decades ago.

Now that sanctions are imposed, it will be the morally responsible thing to get up a military answer to the regime as fast as possible before people start starving. If the deaths that will be the result of sanctions are Assad’s fault, then logic will compel Western powers to help the opposition get up an army as fast as possible. To do anything else would be to assume partial responsibility for their starvation. That is the point.

China and Syria

http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2011/08/21/china-in-syria-series/

In the first of a series of interviews, Dean Cheng discusses the likely motivations behind China’s actions over Syria.

Image credit:Flickr / Maureen

This week, The Diplomat has been providing coverage of the Syrian crisis from an Asia-Pacific perspective. China has featured prominently, as any escalation against the Assad regime could threaten Chinese national interests. Given the country’s powerful voice within the United Nations, and its ability to undermine the effectiveness of US-led energy sanctions, The Diplomat’s Eddie Walsh will be conducting a series of interviews with thought leaders from US and regional think tanks looking at how recent events affect China’s position on Syria. The first interview is with Dean Cheng, Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.

Select policymakers and experts believe that China is much more concerned about Syria than Libya because of its geopolitical location. Some have argued that China fears the Arab Spring will emerge as an ‘Aral Fall’ if the West isn’t careful, placing instability at China’s doorstep. Do you agree this is a major concern for Beijing? Can it be mitigated any other way by Beijing than opposition to UN Security Council action?

I think it’s safe to say that China is concerned with the overall phenomena of the ‘Arab Spring,’ insofar as it introduces instability into potential oil suppliers and affects the global price of oil.

I think China also is concerned with the image of long-time, stable governments falling, especially as it’s preparing for its own power transition. The specter of domestic instability gnaws at the Chinese leadership. In this light, and coupled with the longstanding Chinese opposition to interference in other states’ internal affairs – this could later be applied against China – it would seem highly unlikely that China would do more than abstain on sanctions (which it did on Libya).

If it’s true that the Chinese are concerned with the spread of the Arab Spring phenomena to China, then it would seem that it would be in their interest to stymie further examples of the Arab spring (e.g. in Syria) rather than aid and abet it.

Has the Chinese stance on the Arab Spring helped or hurt public opinion for Chinese foreign policy at home and Chinese prestige and influence abroad? Specifically China’s stance on Syria?

Insofar as there have been some efforts at calling for a Jasmine Revolution in China, those have been rapidly and harshly suppressed — but it’s not clear just how large a movement this is. China’s suppression of these efforts has hurt its image abroad, but again, not enough to lead to any boycotts of Chinese goods. As for Chinese influence, that would seem to depend. Of course, the West would like the Chinese to join in sanctions, but there’s little evidence that the West is prepared to offer substantial incentives to China to do so. Conversely, it’s not clear that China’s failure to support the Jasmine Revolutions has severely affected its relations with Egypt or Tunisia, or, for that matter, Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

What are the main motivations influencing Chinese: 1) Support for Assad; 2) Support for the US/EU position?

It’s not necessarily clear that China supports Assad per se, as opposed to promoting what it perceives as stability.

Support for the US/EU position is much weaker, unless the Chinese calculate that their support will garner them distinct benefits, such as a lifting of Tiananmen technology sanctions or an end to arms export controls. Since the US/EU aren’t prepared to do so, the Chinese are unlikely to join in the US/EU position regarding sanctions.

At the same time, it’s also important to question whether failure to join in the US/UN sanctions against Syria necessarily is the same as supporting the Assad regime. Given China’s longstanding emphasis on non-interference in other states’ affairs, it would seem that China could refuse to join in sanctions without necessarily meaning that it is support for Assad, unless, of course, one is subscribing to the view that if you are against them, then you are for them.

If Libya falls to the rebels in the coming weeks, would that affect the Chinese position on Syria?

The Chinese position seems to be that it doesn’t care very much who is in power, so long as its contracts for resources are honored. And whoever rules Libya will be interested in selling its oil for as high a price as possible. As for Syria…it’s not clear what stakes China has in the ruling entity in Damascus, especially since Syria isn’t a major oil exporter, and certainly not to China.

What is the state of Turkish-Chinese and Arab-Chinese relations? Could these relationships undercut regional support for enhanced US actions?

China has been building its ties to Turkey, including its first major overseas military exercises involving the PLA Air Force. China would therefore appear interested in developing closer ties to Ankara, presumably in order to help influence the Middle East – again more for economic/resource reasons. As for the Arab states, China’s interest is in stability, again relating to oil flow and oil market stability. Insofar as the region is uneasy with the Jasmine Revolutions, China’s stance is likely to garner appreciative stances from states such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Haytham

Hello. Thank you for the post you dedicated to Aboud and Tara last night. I would have loved to be Hamwi or Homsi. I was born in mezza, Damascus.

Aboud

I am amazed how we both trigger so intense feelings in the mnhebaks. I call that charm…Not every one has this quality. Just few.

33. Tara said:

“And finally, I do not have ugly face. I am pretty good looking.”

I,m not talking about your beauty products, skin care, makeup, fragrance & perfume, hair……

It,s clear&obvious Tara you lack understanding of ontology and epistemology.
The significance of me saying”ugly face”to you is(in the sense of figure of speech)
you,re muddling the issues/ ugly face stands for:black heart,lack of Emotional Feelings and Dark Conscience,lack of guilt Feelings.
hope indeed I actualised the key points that you have made in your reply,can you now Tara distinguish between a metaphor and your beauty products?!

Afram

You are interrupting my weekend 2 hour work out. You are the one muddling the issue. I am not talking about beauty products either. I do not use any. It is all natural. Just ask Aboud. He’ll tell you.

To Ann # 36:

They are Hyenas- and they want me to believe that they are going to build a better Syria…God forbid!

Khalid Tlass in yesterday’s post # 174 and 175 (sanctions and their impact) wrote:

“Vous fils de putes, il vous sera bientôt fini Inchallah. Vous serez suspendu à des échafaudages”

“Votre virginité des femmes seront autorisés à nous par le Guerre, nous les aurons, nous allons vous montrer ce que nous sommes”

GOOGLE TRANSLATION:

You son of bitches, you will be over soon Inshallah. You will be suspended from scaffolding

Your virginity women will be allowed to us by the war, we will, we will show you what we are.

The High Commission of the Syrian revolution has issued a statement urging convening opposition to postpone the formation of a body that represents the Syrian people.

الهيئة العليا للثورة لاسورية تدعو إلى تأجيل كل أشكال المؤتمرات الداعية إلى تمثيل الشعب السوري وتشدد على ضرروة دعم الثورة
http://www.sooryoon.net/?p=31322

2011/08/21
لندن ـ سوريون نت:
دعت الهيئة العليا للثورة السورية على صفحتها على الفيس بوك إلى تأجيل كل أشكال المؤتمرات التي تمثل الشعب السوري ودعم الثورة السورية من أجل الإطاحة بالنظام السوري، لكن الهيئة شددت على ضرورة مواصلة الجهود من أجل توحيد كل الطاقات والجهود على الساحة السورية في مواجهة النظام السوري وسوريون نت تنشر البيان الكامل لأهميته:” .. تشهد الساحة السياسية السورية في الداخل والخارج انعقاد
عدد من المؤتمرات، ودعوات لمؤتمرات أخرى … وإنّ الهيئة العامةللثورة السورية تؤيّد أيّ مسعى حقيقي لتوحيد جهود المعارضة السورية في الداخل والخارج بما يدعم الثورة السورية، إلا أننا نؤكد – للمصلحة الوطنية والثورة السورية- على رغبتنا تأجيل أي مشروع\ تمثيلي للشعب السوري؛ وذلك من أجل العمل على التوافقية الكاملة لكافة أطياف و مكونات الشعب السوري في الداخل والخارج؛ مما يمكّن الثورة السورية من تحقيق أهدافها وتطلعات شعبنا بإسقاط النظام وبناء الدولة المدنية الديمقراطية لكل السوريين. ونودّ أن نستفيد من هذه الفرصة لدعوة كل السياسيين السوريين المعارضين في الداخل والخارج إلى أن يكونوا على قدر المسؤولية بالاجتماع و التوحد ، و أن يكونوا على مستوى التضحيات التي قدّمها ويقدّمها أبناء شعبناالسوري، والتي استطاعت وحدها أن تصنع الإنجاز الذي نعيشه اليوم. الخلود لشهدائنا والنصر لشعبنا العظيم
دمشق 21-8-2011

Revlon

What do you think that means? Who is the high commission of the Syrian revolution? Fidaa al sayed? I thought their spokesperson Muhamad Abdallah is participating in the conference today. This would be a real step back. The ball is at the opposition’s court. They need to present themselves to the world as a unified body.

The lable of the selected body of opposition members meeting in Istanbul, and its agenda must neither assume nor imply representation of the Syrian people; Because It does not!
The Syrian revolution forces on the ground, as well as silent citizens are largely underrepresented.

– I find the label National Council to be too assuming!
I would personally prefer the lable “United Syrian Opposition Front”
– It would serve, as the name would imply, to unify the disparate opposition, so as to include as many activists as could attend.
– It could issue a road map and agenda for supporting the Syrian revolution, until the collapse of the regime.
– It could elect an executive committee charged with achieving the set goals.
– It would embark upon liaising with the Syrian Revolution high commission to write a blue print for a tansitional national coalition council and a transitional executive committee that would assume the repsonsibilities of the Syrian parliament and Government upon the collapse of the regime.

bye guys,going beer&fishing >>>))))0>
See ya Later Alligators
Afram

the timing of the interview was picked out well, 9 pm Damascus time. the demonstrations usually start at 9:25-9:35 , its to make sure the people that usually demonstrate are watching the television. i expect a lot of wooden language, and nothing new…..maybe something about article 8…….
only 2 words will stop these demonstrations
“i resign”

Bashar must go: No Legitimacy for the Illegitimate

One of the most popular expressions of the Lockian idea of “natural rights” can be seen in the preamble to the US declaration of independence written by Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The above simply means that it is not up to government to offer its populace personal rights since these are among the bundle of rights that cannot be alienated from the individual. No government can take away that which is embedded into citizens by virtue of birth and to act otherwise is a gross act of hubris and egregious exploitation. When the state adopts policies to take away from people part or all of their natural rights then the state is acting against the will of the governed whose welfare it is supposed to enhance. Such acts of diminution of the rights of citizens are best described as immoral, unethical, exploitative and constitute justifiable uprisings against the ruler whose acts have violated all accepted responsibilities of a governor.

Unfortunately, history is replete with states that have acted as authoritarian rulers, absolute monarchs, brutal dictators and autocrats. Yet the movement towards more democracy and responsible government got its biggest boost with the American and French revolutions of over 235 years ago. Many philosophers and political scientists have argued that the spread of democracy is probably the single best achievement of the 20th century. Alas this glorious trend appears not to have found even a toe hold in the Arab world until the onset of the Arab Spring that started in Tunis, spread to Egypt, Libya and Yemen then Bahrain and Syria not to mention the defensive moves in Morocco, Jordan and possibly Iraq and Palestine.

Tunis and Egypt have already started the hard work of establishing working democracies as soon as their previously strong autocratic regimes collapsed, Yemen and Libya seem to be close to uprooting the dictatorial regimes of Qaddafi and Saleh while the Bahraini demand for reform appears to have been squashed by the Saudi monarchy with the acquiescence of the rest of the GCC. But besides Bahrain, the real paradox so far has been the courageous and popular Syrian uprising. It has been over 5 months since the people of Dara’a took to the streets to send a message to the Syrian Ba’ath that forty years of suppression, exploitation and expropriation of natural rights is enough. The spark of Dara’a spread like a wild fire to the suburbs of Damascus, to Homs , Hama and their environs, to Deir Ezorr, Jisr Alshughur, Banias and Latakia among other places. The civilian protestors were met in all cases with the full force of the Syrian army whose tanks have demolished many residential quarters and whose snipers and military has already killed over 2000 civilians; men women and children, not to mention the tens of thousands of injured and the over 10,000 rounded up for interrogation and torture. It is ironic that the same army that has failed to fire one bullet in almost forty years to liberate the Golan Heights was willing to butcher its own citizens in the name of resistance. As all this blatant brutality by the Syrian dictatorship was going on not one of the Arab governments issued as much as a statement of moral support to the insurgents when each of these regimes did not hesitate to support the Tunisian, Egyptian, Yemeni and Libyan uprisings. The deafening Arab silence was finally broken a fortnight ago when Saudi Arabia issued a statement asking the Syrian authorities to stop the bloodshed. This lukewarm support by Saudi Arabia was followed by expressions of support for the Syrian insurgents by other Arab governments and the Arab League but not by Lebanon. The West on the other hand has continued to pressure Syria to stop the killing through the Presidential Statements of the Security Council, through more severe economic sanctions and through an outright call for Mr. Assad to step down.

The official Lebanese position vis a vis the Syrian uprising will come back to haunt it but it was to be expected from a country whose President was unconstitutionally elected and who has often made it clear that his allegiance to the Damascus is his priority. In addition to the above the current PM, Najib Mikati and his brother Taha, are known to have strong financial ties to the Syrian regime through Syriatel and Sami Makhlouf president Bashars’ cousin. Obviously no one needs to be reminded that Mr. Mikati is the symbolic head of a cabinet that came to power through the machinations of Hezbollah whose military and financial strength depend on smuggled missiles and other ammunition originating in Iran through Syria.

Despite all of this less than overwhelming support of the Arab regimes for the Syrian people in their greatest hour of need the Syrian Revolution is still gaining strength and the autocratic and brutal dictatorship led by Bashar Assad is struggling to find a way to survive by promising all sorts of reforms including a multiparty political system. How convenient to become a reformer when your survival depends on it, this is political expediency par excellence. Mr. Assad fails to understand that there is no such thing as legitimacy of the illegitimate.

Dictatorships are often born in blood, fear, exploitation and usurpation of that which cannot be stolen since it is inalienable. Every single dictatorship will eventually end ignominiously simply because all are rooted in illegitimacy and sooner or later the people will lose the fear of the ruthless security machine that is set up to protect the dictator by pretending that the authoritarian regime knows best what is good for the multitudes when in effect all of the states’ acts are dedicated to the glory of the dictator and his entourage. Mr. Assad is not loosing legitimacy since he never had it to begin with and the governed have the legal right and the moral authority to establish a regime that respects their “natural rights”

It is a foregone conclusion that the Syrian uprising will eventually free itself from the inhumane grip of the Syrian Ba’ath but the price of that liberty is subject to the acts of Bashar Assad. He will either drag Syria into a Libyan style conflagration or he will decide that it is time for the Syrian people to rule themselves. Bashar Assad must go, all dictatorships must end and this is the time to end a forty years old cruel dictatorship.

May be not very significant news, however it is still interesting.

Iran replaces ambassador in Syria who quit his post

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/08/21/163308.html

Quddafi shares same mentality with Bashar. They and all other dictators place no value to human life. In his last address to the Libyans last night, he said:

ازحفوا بلمليون. اللي بيموت بيموت واللي بيعيش بيعيش

I expect that he will expire in the most humiliating way, just in the same way Saddam expired. The typical fate of any dictator….

44 Dear Tara,
I feel that there is still a void of lack of communication between ground forces represented by the coordianting activists, the ground traditional opposition figures, the tradinonal opposition in exile, and revolution advocates in exile.

Such creates a legitimate concern on the part of the underrepresented ground forces that any ensuing body, with powers vested in its proclaimed representivenmess, could lead to underrepresentation of their aspirations in laying the building blocks to New Syria.

The Syrian revolution has asked for the support of and authorised all Syrian opposition councils to act as their advocates and negotiate on their behalf with international and regional powers.
I think such authorisation empowers any emerging body of representatives with needed legitimacy for seeking international support.

We are witnessing a national dialogue on a massive and a historic scale.
Differences are both natural and healthy to the vitality of the process!
The immediate goal should be the forging of an able and empowered opposition to deliver the coup de grace to the ailing regime.
The next one is to forge a stand by acting parliament and mini-government.

UK plays down Syria oil ban proposal

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-plays-down-syria-oil-ban-proposal-2341017.html

Britain today reacted coolly to the prospect of the European Union imposing a ban on oil imports from Syria.

Following the co-ordinated call by western leaders for President Bashar al-Assad to stand down, the EU is planning to discuss extending sanctions against the regime.

However Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt played down suggestions that the EU could follow the lead given by US President Barack Obama in banning Syrian oil imports.

He stressed sanctions should target the regime without hurting the Syrian people. Europe is the main market for Syrian oil and the government in Damascus has warned the ordinary population would suffer if imports are blocked.

“We have been in the vanguard of encouraging the EU to take action against individuals and entities who support the regime in order to avoid the difficulty of taking sanctions against the Syrian people,” Mr Burt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Our view is that sanctions must continue to be targeted on those who support the regime and sanctions should be considered on the basis of what will have most effect on changing that situation or improving the situation for the Syrian people.

“We have not taken a decision on oil. It has got to be discussed because to be effective it has got to work collectively with the rest of the EU.

“What we have got to do, and what we are doing, is increasing the pressure in a manner which does not enable a Syrian spokesman to say ‘You are damaging the Syrian people.”‘

the old man was right again 🙂
one more useless conference,too many power-hungry accidental revolutionists. Let the people inside Syria speak,they are the ones who matter. People like me and you are less important but we can still hurt Syria if we allow foreign governments to dictate the shape and directions of any opposition movement.

This announcement by Umawi News network, a group of exile advocates underscores the ongoing debate regarding the lable and capacity of the body to be announced at the ongoing Istanbul meeting.

حركة سوريا شباب من أجل الحرية Youth Syria For Freedom
أموي مباشر #syria ◄ رأي شبكة أموي الإخبارية ◄

اليوم صدر بيان صحفي عن الهيئة العامة للثورة السورية دعا فيه إلى تأجيل تشكيل أي مجلس أو هيئة لتمثيل الثورة السورية في المرحلة الانتقالية , والرسالة لا يخفى عليكم موجهة الى مؤتمر اسطانبول الذي يعقد الآن لتشكيل مجلس وطني انتقالي على غرار المجلس الليبي للبدء باخذ اعترافات دولية بشرعية المجلس كممثل للشعب السوري , لكن

مع احترامنا لبيان الهيئة العامة للثورة ا…لسورية , فإن هذا البيان لا يواكب طموح الشارع السوري , شارع الثورة في الداخل , والراغب بالخلاص من حمامات الدم التي تجري يوميا , و تشكيل مجلس موحد انتقالي للمعارضة , اصبح ضرورة الآن قبل الغد ولا داعي للتأجيل , فالدماء تراق , ولا بد من مجلس له اعتراف دولي يساهم في اتخاذ اجراءات صارمة مع نظام السفاح بشار الاسد , واحب أن أنوه إلى أنه مجلس انتقالي , أي أنه مؤقت ليحل مكان النظام فور سقوطه ويحضر لانتخابات حرة نزيهة , فلا داعي لتعقيد الامور والتأجيل المتكرر , وينبغي أن نترفع حاليا عن المصالح الفئوية , لتخليص سوريا من براثن العصابة الأسدية .

وتذكرة أخيرة للقائمين على الهيئة العامة للثورة , إلى أن مؤتمر اسطانبول يحضره ممثيلين عن الثورة السورية والتنسيقيات في الداخل , لهم ثقلهم في الثورة السورية
وعليه , فإن من الواجب على الهيئة أن تحضر أيضا مؤتمر اسطانبول لتوحيد الجهود في أسرع وقت

A call for change in Syria that the Arab world can lead
By James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute
Aug 21, 2011
http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/a-call-for-change-in-syria-that-the-arab-world-can-lead?pageCount=0
For months now, the world has witnessed an acceleration of deadly violence in Syria, as the government of Bashar Al Assad has resorted to increasingly brutal methods in an effort to smash a mass uprising.

While the government maintains that it has offered the protesters a range of reform proposals, its lethal repression of largely peaceful demonstrations has called into question the seriousness of its intention to change its approach to governance.

Negotiations between the regime and the opposition, leading to a transition to democracy, may have been possible at one point, but given the government’s behaviour, that moment has long passed. As a result the protesters have sharpened their resolve, now demanding that the regime be toppled. This, in turn, has brought on even more repression.

The spectacle of tens and hundreds of thousands Syrians bravely confronting tanks, troops and snipers has been inspiring. Just as the resilience and courage of the Syrian people have been a wonder to behold, the stubbornness of the regime has been confounding.

The current path being pursued by the government is a dead end and yet it has steadfastly rebuffed all appeals to change direction, even those coming from formerly friendly states. As one Lebanese leftist analyst put it, “the regime is committing suicide”.

Concern for Syria is heightened by the fact that while the regime has acted poorly, the country’s fragmented opposition is not in a position to govern and ensure the safety, security and basic rights of the Syrian people.

Particularly worrisome is the situation of vulnerable minority religious and ethnic communities and large populations of Palestinians and Iraqis who have found refuge in Syria. Many feel that they may now be at risk of an Iraq-like scenario playing out in the country. This fear of an unknown future is the last card the regime can still play, allowing it to hold onto the support of some segments of Syrian society.

This violence and repression have gone on too long and there are dangerous signs that should they continue, the situation may spin further out of control, with lawlessness, calls for revenge and sectarian conflict growing. While this, too, has been a mantra of the regime, there should be no mistaking the fact that the current state of affairs is due to the behaviour of the regime itself: its egotistical attitude; its deafness to the cries of its people; and its history of refusing to allow any real independent political institutions to develop in the country.

This week the US president, Barack Obama, took the step of declaring that President Al Assad should “step aside” and “get out of the way” of a transition in Syria. He coupled this with “unprecedented sanctions to deepen the financial isolation of the regime”. Shortly thereafter his efforts were matched with similar moves by many European allies.

Some hawks in Washington have criticised the American administration for not acting sooner, but they are dead wrong.

The Obama administration’s policy to date has been appropriate. America can ratchet up pressure, impose sanctions, speak out in defence of freedom and coordinate strategies with allies, but it should not assume a broader role by directly intervening. After two reckless and failed wars in the region, and a history of callous disregard for Palestinian rights, the US is not in a position to lead in Syria. Most Syrians (and most Arabs, in general) would reject such a US-led role.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution or path forward. What is clear, however, is that the situation in Syria has reached the point where the Arab world can and must respond. It is unacceptable for the current situation to go unchecked and equally problematic for Arabs to appear powerless while mass atrocities continue to be committed. While Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait have recalled ambassadors to Syria, so far the Arab response has been muted.

Back when the Arab League suspended Libya’s membership, it seemed unimaginable that any other Arab government would pursue policies that would force it, too, to become an outcast state. But it appears that the regime in Damascus has done just that.

The Arab League should condemn the Assad regime and promptly suspend its membership in the organisation, declaring that the regime has forfeited the right to play a role in Syria’s and the region’s future.

While this step will not, by itself, bring about an end to the violence or pave the way for a managed transition of power, it will further isolate and expose the regime. And because the current opposition is not ready to take control of the country, the Arab League could join with Turkey in convening a conference of Syrian stakeholders to help prepare them for transition, offering to provide the resources and hands-on support needed.

It is especially important that in convening this conference an effort be made to involve all segments of Syrian society, creating a national dialogue that will assure religious and ethnic minorities that their rights as equal citizens in the Syria of tomorrow are secure.

Some worry that steps of this sort may embolden Iran to play a more active and supportive role in Syria. But Iran and its surrogates are already backing and investing in the regime.

It is Syria’s people who have no regional patron. They need a strong and dramatic display of support from their Arab brethren. The sooner they receive the support and backing they deserve, the better.

James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute

Dear revlon

As long as their is good communication between the local coordination committees on the ground and the revolution advocates in exile, I am not worried. They must be heavily represented in any eventual “body” representing Syria. I see the traditional internal or external opposition should only assume an advisory role. The youth is our future. They made the sacrifice and they should be amply represented.

Ankara should confront Tehran
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist-254359-ankara-should-confront-tehran.html
A few days ago the US and the EU finally did what they had been expected to do for some time: In a coordinated action they called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

According to Washington and Brussels the Syrian leader has lost all legitimacy after his government’s recent brutal attacks against his own people.

Before the US and EU issued their call, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made clear that the American and European demands would only be effective if they were joined by countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, regional powers that, according to Clinton, have more influence on Syria. White House officials told the press that President Obama had held back from issuing his ultimatum to give Turkey’s diplomatic attempts of the last two weeks more time to work. Unfortunately, Ankara’s pressure on Assad was not effective, so now we are moving to the next phase. The question is whether Turkey will join the US and Europe in their call for Assad to go.

I think Turkey should and probably will do so, preferably together with Saudi Arabia. This last connection is a significant indicator of the fact that the Syrian crisis is having a profound impact on the region’s political balance. Saudi King Abdullah has decided to come out against the Syrian regime because, with good reason, he has made the analysis that getting rid of Assad would seriously weaken Iran, which currently uses its closeness with Damascus to play a role in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and the Palestinian territories (Hamas). For years now, Riyadh has considered Tehran its arch enemy and main rival for control of the Gulf. The Saudi interest in undermining Iran’s influence in the region is clear, but what about Turkey and Iran?

We know how closely Ankara aligned itself with Tehran on the issue of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, voting against sanctions on Iran in the UN Security Council. Turkey’s support for the Syrian opposition has caused some cracks in its relations with Iran, but still the Turkish government claims that because of its past alignment it has the potential to influence Iran’s policy. The problem for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is that a growing number of international observers wonder whether this will really prove true when push comes to shove. Assad did not listen to Turkey’s repeated requests to implement reforms, despite similar claims from Ankara to strong ties with Syria. Why would Iranian President Ahmadinejad pay any attention to Turkey’s concerns about Syria when Iran’s future role in the region is at stake?

In my opinion there are three good reasons why Turkey should join the growing crowd of those who are convinced that there is no future for Assad as president of Syria, thereby knowingly confronting Iran. One is, as Suat Kınıklıoğlu put it in his column in this paper this week, “If Turkey is going to become a leading player and an inspiration for the people of the Middle East, it needs to come out of the Syrian crisis on the right side.” It is now clear that this means joining the US and Europe, not Iran. A second good reason is the new round of Turkish attacks on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq. It is true that Iran has the potential to make life difficult on Turkey if it wants to, as Tehran skillfully demonstrated with the well-orchestrated rumors of the arrest of PKK leader Murat Karayılan. But in the end, in fighting the PKK, Turkey has more to gain from good intelligence cooperation, non-transparent though it might be, with the US, because both have a clear interest in diminishing the presence and influence of terrorists in Iraq.

Finally, my guess is that Turkey and the rest of the world will be confronted with a new wave of protests in Iran in the foreseeable future. In 2009, Turkey sided with the Iranian regime in its violent suppression of the demands for more democracy during and after the rigged presidential elections. After Turkey’s support for the Arab Spring, Ankara should realize that it cannot remain silent when the Persian Spring arrives. Better to be on the right side then as well. For all these reasons, I believe Turkey has a unique chance to use the Syrian revolt to recalibrate its regional alliances and put some more distance between Ankara and Tehran.

Syria and Western Media War Propaganda

http://mwcnews.net/focus/politics/12924-syria-and-western-media.html

The Syrian news agency SANA report that on Saturday, in solidarity with Syria, a large group of Russian intellectuals, cultural and social researchers, politicians and academics, kicked of a two week long visit to Syria. Members of the delegation expressed pride of their long friendship with Syria and said that: “What is happening in this country (Syria) is of great concern to us as individuals, to our country and the concern we share for our own homes, not far away from the Syrian borders.

What is taking place in the house of Syria; also have an unwanted impact on our own house. Western neo-conservatives in collaboration with its international coercers have plotted a secret plan to carry out sinister acts against Syria, a conspiracy with political incentives. We are here to say that we are ready to provide support for the Syrian people at this moment of our history”.

The Vice President of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, André Falibov said that:

“We are here today to see what is unfolding in Syria, we will assess the situation and after express our believes, that the solution to Syria’s internal conflict lies in the hands of the Syrian people, and in the command of President Bashar al-Assad and his adviser, who are both capable to confront this sinister conspiracy aimed at overthrow the Syrian government.”

– Mr. Falibov added:

The Russian delegation will transfer gathered information throughout the Russian media and to a broader segment of the Russian society.

On his part, Vićlav Matuszov, the President of the Russian Association for Friendship and Cooperation with the Arab countries, said that:

“The Russian position is quite different from U.S. relations, not only towards Syria, but toward the entire Arab world, since Russia views the developments on the Arab arena through the careful examination of a geopolitical perspective, not from the standpoint of a regional communal politic.”

Matuszov added:

“We have accurate information from valid intelligence sources, Western intelligence, not Russian or Arabic are providing important facts to us, that the West, United States and neo-conservatives in U.S, and members of the Jewish lobby inside the U.S. congress, are plotting the U.S. action plan of vandalisms that unfolds in Arab countries without exception, and these schemes are planned for years, step by step. And I can assure you, that not only Syria is under attack, but Arab societies at large. Aimed to weaken the Islamic and Arab world to make it manageable i.e. inoperative and powerless, paralyze the economy and political activities. With the consolidation of U.S. hegemony over a new international economic system, as a first step – a Western hegemony across the region. Russia sees these developments as the beginning of a U.S. expansion of hegemony against the Muslim world and the Middle East region; if uncontrolled it will paralyze the world politically.”

Vićlav Matuszov concluded :

“It is a great honor for the Russian delegation to visit Syria in this difficult time,”- explaining that: Russia will stand in the front- line of defense against the first serious plans by U.S. to take control in the Arab and Muslim world .We are able to solve internal problems without state intervention, we have political and moral strength, and we can affirm that the this covert imperialist/Zionist hegemony project will hit the wall and not be able to destroy the country of Syria ”.

Mohamed Salah Dinov, President of the Islamic Council of Russia, said that:

Syria is the most important country in the Arab and Muslim world,”- stressing- “Russia’s support for Syria’s government and its people. Russia is in opposition to any foreign interference in internal affairs.” Mr. Dinovsaid that: I believe that external actors are intervening in the Syrian affairs, intending to spread chaos and instability. Hence Syria has always been supportive of the national resistance, in both Lebanon and Palestine, and this support has become an obstacle to the Zionist projects, planted in discord and violation of the sanctities within the Arab society’.”

Furthermore, the press contact of the Russian newspaper, Pravda, Elena Bakayva said that:

“Western media do not report the truth, as it is waging a media war against Arab countries and the Middle East and conducting a malicious campaign to back them up. Bakayva confirm that Western media distorts the facts in cooperation with Arab satellite channels…

And she conclude:

“We have kept watching for months, the events in Syria and we see now how to cover the Arab channels , the particularly Al-Jazeera ,which became the right hand of the first Western journalists, against the region, confirming that with certainty, they are working for and paid by third parties.”

Elena Bakayva went to Syria as a representative of the newspaper Pravda, to transfer unbiased facts about what is going on in Syria and the Arab world.

Boris Dolubov on the other hand is a senior researcher and professor at the Institute of Orientalism and the Academy of Political Science in Moscow; he said that he wanted to visit Syria to see for his own eyes what is going on.

“I have visited Syria more than once and I know well of its friendly people, and I know the size in economic and social achievements during the last decades in Syria.” Dolubov expressed his belief that: Attempts of foreign interference in Syrian affairs aimed at imposing dominance to change Syrian policy, in particular its foreign policy …He said “We know that Syria supports the Palestinian national resistance and this policy is not stemming well with the goals of the Israelis and some Western countries. The Syrian leadership is the national leadership; they want to make internal reforms, “

Dolubov was stressing that –

“The solution to the crisis in Syria is in the hands of the Syrians without external intervention, in all its forms.”

For his part, Aleg Graybkov, the deputy editor of the Arabic section of the Radio Voice of Russia said:

”We came to Syria to assess the reality of the situation here, my professional crew intended to study the Media work here, to inform the outside world everything we observe and that’s what I’ll do, I feel and I wish with all my heart that the Syrian people, will come out of this crisis, which has become very challenging in these final stages.. In my view there are a lot of factors that can prove it.”

Oleg Fomin, Co-Chair of the Committee of Russia’s solidarity with Syria and Libya, and joint chairman of the Society for Economic Cooperation and Social Foundation, Moscow – Aleppo said that :

“My visit to Syria is an expression of solidarity with the Syrian people, and I reject any foreign interference whatsoever in the internal affairs of the sovereign country of Syria .”

Fomin explained that the Russian Solidarity Committee is representing a broad range of social groups in Russia, professors, intellectuals and young people, diplomats and members of the Parliament and the upper Chamber and the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation. Fomin said that: “The relations between our two countries are dating back hundreds of years. The first Bishop in Kiev, which is dating back a thousand years, was Michael Ceren, a Syrian who said:” ..: Syria is the best example of the fruit of nationalism”- and that’s how it want to remain, we understand that external enemies want to ruin this beautiful image of Syria, for their own purposes, adding that; We as a committee will spare no effort to defend Syria – and the enemies of Syria are the enemies of all honest Russian people and enemies of the rest of the world. ”

For his part, Shamil Sultanov, President of the Center for the Study of Russia and the Muslim world, and the head of the previous parliament, to Syria’s pivotal role in the region and the world outside Syria. He said that: What is unfolding in Syria will affect the world in every direction, and the consequences of what is happening here, will reflect on the international situation, and our global and world politics. Syria is exposed to an external plot, external because it is located in the closest region where the resistance in the region arises from, against the conspirators of this region.”

Alexander Brochanov, the editor of Zafter Russia, Head of the Russian journalists club, said earlier:

“Syria is exposed to a media conspiracy against universe and – I am the editor of one of the most important newspapers of Russia. Hence, our newspaper has become very popular, and my intention is to talk to my readers about the fact that Syria, is exposed to a major plot, through the funding of acts of sabotage, and the transfer of arms to the (opposition), with the sinister aim to violently change Syrian policy in the direction, as it has been planned by the some Western country and among its interlockers.”- Brochanov concluded: “The major reforms undertaken by President Assad would have a positive impact on the lives of the Syrian people, and to the future life of Syria. So we will standby until these reforms are achieved, intended to give Syria peace and security.” adding that Russia:” At the same time Russia is defending Syria, it is guarding historical relations between our two countries, the warm and caring friendship, which have evolved throughout the history.“

سوريا الأسد مستعدة… لمواجهة طويلة!
سركيس نعوم
http://www.annahar.com/content.php?priority=8&table=makalat&type=makalat&day=Sat

……ما هو الموقف الفعلي لسوريا النظام من التحوّل الجذري في موقف المجتمعين الدولي والعربي؟
طبعاً ليست سعيدة به، يجيب متابعون ومن قرب حركتها. لكنها في الوقت نفسه ليست “مرعوبة” منه. فهي، ورغم كل “عنتريات” مؤيديها وجزمهم اكثر من مرة بالانتهاء مما يجري قريباً، تعرف انها تخوض مواجهة صعبة ومكلفة قد تستمر طويلاً. ويعني ذلك اشهراً وحتى سنوات. لكنها مقتنعة باستمرار قدرتها على ادارة هذه المواجهة بأقل قدر من الاخطار عليها، ومقتنعة ايضاً بأن لا سبيل امامها سوى ذلك لأن اميركا لم تقدم يوماً عرضاً جدياً لها او خياراً جدياً قابلاً للبحث فيه، ومقتنعة ثالثاً بأن ايران قدمت لها وعلى مدى 18 سنة كل المساعدة والدعم اللازمين لها لمواجهة تحديات الداخل والخارج المتنوعة في حين كانت مساعدات الآخرين دائماً مصلحية، وهي لن تترك ايران. كما ان ايران لن تتركها وحيدة في عزلتها الجديدة. وستنتظر الاثنتان إما “صفقة” كبيرة اذا توافرت ظروفها وإما مواجهة نهائية لا يمكن التكهن بنتائجها. لكن السؤال الذي يُطرح هنا وقد “يُجاب” عنه لاحقاً هو: هل صحيح ان سوريا لم تتلق عروضاً او خيارات، وإنها كانت دائماً مستهدفة من اميركا والغرب؟ او إنها لم تحسن التعامل مع الظروف والتطورات في الداخل والخارج وخصوصاً بعد رحيل مؤسس نظامها الرئيس الراحل حافظ الاسد؟
More ….

I guess we have a couple of hours before junior gives an interview with SANA/himself.
This is how I foresee the dialogue
Mr. President can you give us your opinion on where is the situation?
P: Syria has gone through a period targeting its independent and resistance policies in the name of demand for reforms. We have overcome this period and we are in the process of reestablishing security to the towns and villages in Syria. People can go back to their lives confident that the institutions will be there to help them with their lives.
Mr. President can you comment on the reform process?
P: We are on our way to create a model for the rest of the world whereby the rights and responsibilities of the citizen will be defined for the next 100 years.
Mr. President can you comment on the relation with Turkey?
P: We are in constant dialogue with the leaders of Turkey and we told them that we are finishing up the mopping up of operations
Mr. President what about the sanctions?
P: The world is not centered around Europe and the US anymore. The centers or power are multiple and Syria will navigate through these times as it did after 2005
Mr. President what about the new constitution
P: the committee that I established will come up with a new modern constitution and we can proceed with the various necessary measures to establish a law for multiparty system and for the press and for the separation of powers.
Mr. President do you intend to run for re election?
P: This is premature now and we have to establish norms for the next electoral processes
Mr. President where will you go shopping now that you are banned from traveling to Europe?
P: I will visit the famous Bazaar in Teheran
Mr. President where will your wife go for shopping?
P: Teheran also.
Mr. President will you give up the post of Chief of the armed forces and chief of the Supreme Court?
P: that will be decided by the new constitution that we will help draft and implement.
Mr. President do you think that the voice of the people is being heard
P: I think that some desire better services and they have been manipulated for the sake of destabilizing Syria
Mr. President will the Parliament control the purse or the executive
P: we will go ahead and establish a commission to study that.
Mr. President what about corruption?
P: I have instructed the prime minister to proceed with an overhaul of the system of governance in all branches of the government

Please wake me up when the speech is finished.
Can anyone predict a different speech.

http://www.tajerna.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7757&catid=&Itemid=111
وفد إسرائيلي يزور تجمعات للمعارضة السورية في مدريد
سياسة السبت, 20 آب 2011

قام فريق من الوفد الاسرائيلي المشارك في فعاليات الدورة الـ 16 ليوميات الشباب العالمي في العاصمة الاسبانية مدريد بزيارة أحد التجمعات التي نظمها معارضون سوريون أمام السفارة السورية في مدريد وذلك في خطوة تكشف حقيقة ما تتعرض له سورية من مؤامرة اسرائيلية غربية.‏
وردد أعضاء الوفد الاسرائيلي هتافات باللغة الاسبانية تشير إلى تضامنهم مع المعارضين السوريين الذين شاركوهم الهتاف ضد سورية.

وذكر أحد المواقع الإلكترونية في مقال له أن إسرائيل تعمل على بث الفوضى وتقويض الاستقرار في سورية حيث تدعم ما يسمى بالمعارضة السورية بهدف تسليم جماعات متطرفة السلطة في سورية مضيفا إن إسرائيل اقتنعت بعدم إمكانية فك المحور السوري الإيراني رغم الضغوط الأميركية والفرنسية والعربية على سورية.‏
وأضاف الموقع إن تغيير الأوضاع في سورية سيمنح إسرائيل فرصة لعقد اتفاق سلام معها لافتا إلى أن إسرائيل تعلم أن المجتمع الدولي لن يغامر ليدخل سورية كما فعل في ليبيا فموقف روسيا والصين والبرازيل والهند وجنوب أفريقيا ولبنان سيكون حاضرا دائما ضد أي قرار يتخذ ضد دمشق إضافة إلى رفض الجامعة العربية لأي تدخل بشؤون سورية الداخلية.‏
وأضاف الموقع إن أكثر ما يثير قلق إسرائيل توجه أنظار العالم الى القضية الفلسطينية في حال انتهاء الأزمة السورية لذا تسعى إسرائيل إلى إطلاق تصريحات داعمة للاحتجاجات ومهاجمة النظام.‏
وأشار الموقع إلى أن إسرائيل ليست بمنأى أبدا عن موجة الاحتجاجات التي بدأت تطرق بابها أيضا فالشرق الأوسط لا يبخل أبدا بمفاجأته.‏
ويشير المحللون الى أنه بات واضحاً أن الكيان الاسرائيلي يتابع ما يجري في سورية بانتباه شديد، خاصة ما يتعلق بأثره المتوقع على زعزعة استقرار البلاد هناك، ولعل أدل على ذلك ما قام به جملة من الحكام الصهاينة يتزعمهم شمعون بيريز الرئيس الإسرائيلي، يرافقه عدد من قادة الجيش بزيارة الخط الفاصل في الجولان المحتل، وإعلانه بما لا يدع مجالاً للشك أن أي زعزعة داخلية في سورية، ستخفف عن إسرائيل جبهة حربية!!، وعدا عن التصريحات والمواقف فلطالما كان إحداث التغيير في سورية، كخيار بديل عن الحرب المتعذرة ضد المقاومة، وإيجاد بيئة استراتيجية في المنطقة تكون مناسبة ومؤاتية للمصلحة الاسرائيلية، كون ذلك خيار إسرائيلي قائم ومطروح، بل وكان محور نقاشات المسؤولين في الكيان الاسرائيلي في السنوات القليلة الماضية، اي في الفترة التي اعقبت الإخفاق العسكري في لبنان عام 2006.‏
حيث صدرت عن حكام صهيون منشورات ، ترتبط بالخيار السوري وإمكاناته، باعتباره خشبة خلاص تمكّن إسرائيل من احداث تغيير استراتيجي في المنطقة كان هذا هو واقع العدو الصهيوني قبل الأزمة السورية، وفي الاجمال، وبمعظم مكوناته، هو واقع الكيان الغاصب خلال الأزمة السورية ايضا، الامر الذي يفسر ارتداع تل أبيب عن اللجوء الى قدراتها العسكرية، لتغيير مسارات الأزمة او دفع اتجاهاتها بما يتوافق مع المصلحة الاسرائيلية الكاملة لكن ذلك، بطبيعة الحال، لا يعني عدم استعدادها وتجهّزها لليوم الذي يلي الأزمة.‏

BARD PITT

Aboud,

Not when I wake up. Only after I take a shower and use the products listed in our newest linguist/cosmetic specialist @ 40.

Party Politics

Tara

A right wings party may accept useful idiots in their ranks, but not useless idiots. So our shabeeha characters are doomed to regurgitate their hate in their miserable loneliness or right here on SC pages, where they get edited, quite frequently.

However, it is rather interesting that someone who tried to look smart and sarcastic fell head first for your simple trick, and now looks snobbish as well. Way to go TARA…. Let’s help them dig themselves deeper.

Speaking of fine writing, check Ghassan Karam’s masterfully written post, which received 6 thumbs down in time not enough to read the first paragraph of this outstanding piece.

Finally, enjoy your workout. Here is me in my latest workout

HYENAS and LIONS

@42

Agree partially, but the title Hyenas has been claimed by other branches of regime thugs a while ago, look for a different name to describe mukhabarat agent-provocateurs like the writer of the comments you have translated. No rats, and no germs, both names have been allocated by people so rich abd powerful that they are worshiped by some.

BTW: Nice Bay View. Business must be good. I once dug a hole in a nearby park, but almost got eaten by a skinny stray Persian cat. You rich folks should take better care of your pets. Must teach the kids to take responsibility for the pets they demand. I always tell the pups, no more cockroaches.

INTERVIEW @ the Lion’s Den
Observer
Not much different, except that in reality, the interview will be stuffed with useless lessons, explanation of the obvious, and slef adoring talk. Much like bashar likes to do. Talk talk and talk.

Mr الدكتور محمود سليمان طلاس فرزات Doctor Mahood Suleiman Tlas farzat, a big sunni fish, and a traditional regime supporter and benefactor has been arrested and charged with financing the terrorists!
Did he balk on supporting Shabbeeha or was he caught jumping the sinking ship?

Ugarit News | أوغاريت الإخبارية
أوغاريت || الرستن ::
النظام السوري يضيف حماقة جديدة الى رصيده… باعتقال أحد أعمدة الاقتصاد السوري
================================================
2011/08/21
في تحول خطير في الازمة السورية ..
…يبدو أن النظام السوري صار يضرب خبط عشواء …

فقبل يوم من حوار الرئيس .. وبعد يوم من جلسة مجلس الامن .. وبيان اوباما ..وعقوبات أمريكا والاتحاد الأوربي الجديدة … واضافة الى الضربات الكبيرة التي تم توجيهها الى الاقتصاد السوري في الشهرين الاخيرين .. هاهو يوجه ضربة من العيار الثقيل .. باعتقال صناعي من كبار صناعيي سوريا ومستثمريها الكبار .. ورجل من كبار من دعموا صناعة الزيوت في سوريا …واحد أهم أعمدة الاقتصاد السوري .. وشريك وعضو مجلس ادارة في عدة بنوك سورية وشركات تكافلية كبيرة ..
الدكتور محمود سليمان طلاس فرزات .. صاحب مجموعة فرزات للتنمية
التي أنشأت منذ 13 سنة، وتنتج جميع أنواع الزيوت النباتية من القطن والذرة والصويا وعباد الشمس، إضافةً إلى أنواع السمون والزبدة النباتية وجميع أنواع الأعلاف للأبقار والدواجن، كذلك تضم المجموعة عدة شركات صناعية، إحداها: «الشركة السعودية للكيماويات» بحلب وهي تعتبر الشركة الرائدة والوحيدة، وهي تنتج عدة مواد منها: ماءات الصوديوم إضافةً إلى مواد أولية واستراتيجية وضرورية للبلد والبلدان المجاورة، ويغطي إنتاجها جنوب تركيا والعراق ولبنان وسورية بالتأكيد، و «شركة فرزات للصناعات البلاستيكية» في حسياء، و«شام تكس» التي تنتج جميع أنواع الخيوط القطنية ذات المواصفات العالية، و«مجموعة فرزات للتنمية» مساهمة بالعديد من المشاريع والشركات الاقتصادية (بنوك، شركات تنمية )
– اليوم احدى شبكات اخبار النظام التي يديرها عمار اسماعيل وجيشه الالكتروني ..( شبكة اخبار الرستن ) نشرت خبر اعتقاله كممول للتخريب ..حيث كتبت : عاجل الرستن : تم هذا اليوم الإطاحة بالرأس المدبر والممول الرئيسي للعمليات التخريبة في مدينة الرستن وهو من كبار الصناعيين في المدينة (محمود فرزات) صاحب مجموعة فرزات للتنمية
– فهل سيخرج غدا علينا احد مواقع النظام الامنية .. مثل شوكوماكو او زنوبيا ..ليزف لنا خبر القاء القبض على وزير اقتصاد امارة الرستن السلفية ؟؟؟
– ماذا وراء اعتقال هذا الصناعي ؟؟
هل هناك من يستغل الاوضاع ليخرج منافسيه من طريقه ..؟؟
أم ان السبب أن الرجل شرح في حوار له مع احمد صطوف في

الرستن
about an hour ago

#60, Dear OTW, here is how Homsies see Jr’s speach IV

“Mr. President will you give up the post of Chief of the armed forces and chief of the Supreme Court?

P: that will be decided by the new constitution that we will help draft and implement.”

HAHAHAHAHAH 🙂

A story on SANA. I will make some comments after the article below.

250 Figures from 18 Countries Participate in ‘Syria is Fine’ Campaign
Aug 21, 2011

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- with the participation of 250 academic, political, media, art and parliamentary figures from 18 countries in response to the invitation of an independent Syrian youth group, ‘Syria is Fine’ campaign started its activities on Sunday.

The participants visited the Mariamite Cathedral, al-Azem Palace, the Umayyad Mosque and Damascene old markets.

At the Mariamite Cathedral, Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazim of Antioch and All The East said “We do not need to show anything other than our reality …the reality is what you will see with your own eyes… we live in peace and the situation in Syria is different from what is being shown in some media channels”

He added “we are proud that we live in a country that is full of love among all sects, and what is being broadcast by some channel is untrue.”

The three-day campaign includes field and tourist visits in addition to meetings with public and trade bodies.

R. Milhem /M. Ismael

http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2011/08/21/365232.htm

#65. The article claims an ‘independant’ syrian youth group organised this event. Is it independant?

Also how many of the participants actually travelled from abroad?
Were they foreigners already based in Syria?

Whatever the matter. All these regimes are liars and decievers.

Btw. What a joke of a story when Syrians are locked up in prison:

Sit-in at Outskirts of Occupied Syrian Golan to Show Solidarity with Arab Captives in Israeli Prisons

These days are days of celebration, Gaddafi will soon be ousted,
It is wonderful that freedom is flourishing in the middle East,Dictatorship and despotism are disappearing,and yes, we do not want extremism,and vengence, people lives are sacred,and their ideas must be respected.

All is calm in Damascus

http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/08/21/54967616.html

The last few days, contradictory reports are coming from Syria. Some say that the opposition is terrorizing the country, some, on the contrary, that the regime of President al-Assadis suppressing the opposition.

A UN delegation has visited Syria to see with their own eyes what is really happening there. At the same time, a Russian delegation visited this Arab country – politicians, public figures, clergymen, journalists and experts on Eastern affairs.

In an interview to the Voice of Russia, a member of the Russian delegation, the President of the Society of Friendship and Business Cooperation with Arab Countries Vyacheslav Mutuzov shared his impressions.:

“Streets are calm in Damascus. Even if some people are not satisfied with the government, they do not set demonstrations, to say nothing of armed clashes. The real picture is very different from the one that some Western media are trying to present.”

“I think that, in the 21st century, the world, so to say, will see a new kind of wars – wars of electronic media sources,” Mr. Mutuzov says. “Such a media war is already being held over the Syrian events. From what I saw with my own eyes, I can drive a conclusion: like in every country, there are people in Syria who are not satisfied with the governments’ actions and with the living standards. But, for all their dislike of the government, they are not very inclined to overthrow it. It is the West which is warming up oppositionist moods in Syria. And, as far as I can judge, in other Arab countries, the situation is nearly the same – the anti-government moods are warmed up by the West, because it is trying to overthrow the not-too-loyal-to-the-West regimes with the help of the peoples of these countries.”

“However,” Mr. Mutuzov continues, “nobody, be it even the US president, can dictate to Arab countries what regimes or what presidents they must have. This runs counter to the UN Charter and other international laws.”

“From what we saw in Damascus,” he says, “we may conclude that these plans of the West do not correspond with the moods of the Syrian men-in-the-street. Damascus is living its usual life. People sell, buy, bargain or walk idle. Sometimes, they do scold the government – but nothing more than that. It looks like nobody wants to overthrow the al-Assad regime, besides the West.”

@uzair8
These so called spontaneous patriotic groups like the fingerprint of the youth of syria… Have way too much power in their hand, like organizing massive orgies of festivals with pan-arab superstars, reserving huge squares and assuming large sums of money…propaganda tool much?

News Analysis: Syria under pressure for resisting western plans in the region

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-08/22/c_131064442.htm

DAMASCUS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could now smell the chill following some western countries’ intensified sanctions against his country over the week and their concerted demand for him to step down.

According to observers, Damascus’ solid ties with Iran and some regional groups that the West deems as terrorists, is probably the most logical reason behind the mounting international pressures on the Syrian government.

TOOL TO WEAKEN TERROR

For Washington and its European allies, drawing Syria from Iran and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas means a sound step forward in weakening the Iranian leverage that is eyed cautiously and suspiciously by most Arab countries fearful of the spreading Shiite influence across the region.

Khaled Aboud, a member of the Syrian parliament, told Xinhua that there is “an open global battle run by all legitimate and illegitimate tools to downfall a strategic system — a reference to the alliance between Syria, Iran and other resistant groups in the region — and to rearrange the entire region.”

Meanwhile, George Jabbour, a former parliamentarian and currently a political analyst, said that Syria and Iran are two basic poles that support resistant groups in Lebanon and Palestine.

“This axis has been targeted since a long time and what is demanded from Damascus is a complete turnabout in its foreign policy, but this doesn’t work in Syria,” Jabbour said.

NEW SANCTIONS

In its latest move, the United States, which started imposing sanctions on Syria during former president George W. Bush’s tenure and renewed them after Barack Obama took office, slapped Damascus with new sanctions that targeted its biggest commercial bank and mobile telephone operator.

The fresh sanctions will also freeze the Syrian government’s assets under U.S. jurisdiction, bar U.S. individuals or companies from transactions with al-Assad’s government and ban U.S. import of Syrian petroleum.

Following that, the European Union (EU) on Friday decided to add 20 names to the list of Syrians targeted by asset freeze and travel ban. It said it is also preparing new restrictive measures including an embargo on the import of Syrian crude oil, and that it would soon suspend the technical assistance of the European Investment Bank.

SYRIA’S REBUTTAL

The sanctions were compounded by the U.S. and its European allies’ demand on Thursday of al-Assad’s stepping down due to alleged persistent military crackdown against protesters.

Despite al-Assad’s promise to the United Nations that the military operations have ended and that the Syrian army withdrew from all violence-hit areas, human rights activists said at least 20 people were killed on Friday in southern Syria and the Damascus suburb of Harasta, and that the regime is still allegedly using its machine guns to quell protests. These groups said over 1,800 people had been killed in the five-month-old unrest.

However, Syria persisted that the West’s calls simply unveiled the real face of the conspiracy and vowed to stand up to all pressures.

A front-page article published Saturday in al-Thawra newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Syrian government, said the West is targeting Syria’s fundamental role in the region and its status as a basic player in the Arab-Israeli conflict that has been dragging on for six decades.

“Shunning Syria out of the conflict was still a strategic target for Israel, Washington and the West,” the article said.

ROLE OF IRAN, RUSSIA

Both Syria and Iran share to a certain extent similar foreign policy objectives: opposition to what they describe as U.S. attempts to dominate the Middle East, hostility toward Israel and support for Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups fighting the Jewish state.

Syria has repeatedly voiced support to Iran’s right to own nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, while Iran’s economic and political support has enabled Syria to survive those sanctions and international isolation.

Syria as well viewed the pressures as aiming at getting more concessions from Damascus in any future peace deal between Israel and the Arabs. Syria has exercised adamant stand during previous peace talks with the Jewish state and backed Palestinian groups like Hamas, which is viewed by both Washington and Tel Aviv as terrorist.

Meanwhile, Syria’s strong ties with Russia explains part of its steadfastness in the face of increasing western pressure.

On Friday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry cautioned the West against encouraging the Syrian opposition and said it did not support the calls for al-Assad to abdicate.

Russia believes al-Assad must be given sufficient time to fulfill promises of reform he has already commenced. Russia’s opposition will make it difficult for the U.S. and its allies to get UN Security Council backing for their sanctions.

Who will be the winner in the confrontation remains an open question. The answer is left to the Syrian people, taking into consideration that al-Assad still enjoys unwavering popularity among most of the Syrians.

“Only the Syrians have the sole right to call for their president to step down or to stay in power… Obama should be more respectful of human rights and democracy,” said Jabbour.

Read this comment on Al Jazeera English ‘Diary of a besieged Syrian town blog’:

Syrian security forces used psychological “dirty” intimidation to intimidate protesters

the Syrian regime and its security forces and shabbiha has provided all sort of kind of intimidation and torture, to deter the protesters and the suppression of the revolution in Syria

The reported information exclusive to Beirut Observer that the security forces, specifically in Daraa and Jisr Al Shughur used “dirty” psychological intimidation to frighten and intimidate protesters, through the arrest of a number of men with their wives and daughters, and the elements of the security forces forced their husbands to see them without clothes and being threatened to be raped the next time if they continue in the protests and demonstrations

Information revealed that this type of intimidation had a significant impact in alleviating the protests in these areas and prevent many men from returning to the street and demand to drop the system.

SO far, he is focusing on the Baath party, dead on arrival. No one takes the party seriously.

Equivocation, Lies, and self deception. Up to the 12th minute of the interview, he is very much like the posts we see above, in self denial.

Talking about the “bundle” of reform, which is already rendered meaningless by his use of brutality and murder is only a show of his arrogance and distance from reality of what the Syrian people want.

Now he is lecturing the youth.

I am waiting for the questions about detainees?…

Press law: does he mean the one that completely abandoned the recommendations of journalists, even those working for his regime and being controlled by the oppressive security apparatus.

6 Months to election.

Watching Besho on Alarabyia. Blah blah blah so far. The screen is split and images of murdered child and army defection are ongoing. Aljazeera not having him life. I guess they are expecting blahs of nothing rightly so.

The man is no leader, he could have made a good bureaucrat. What a shame.

Anyone noticed that his problem pronouncing S is very very evident today, it is a sign of extreme stress.

Transparency under law 69, which he re-authorized in 2008 is a joke. What accountability while the law prohibits holding security agents accountable for murders and crimes committed while doing their job which is by definition, protecting the mafia band.

He is now threatening.

Syrian TV is a precious institution to every Syrian .. ROFL.

I knew it, he will talk about Libya. Iraq, and other places, forgetting that many of the maimed, and orphaned in Iraq were made so because of his support to sectarian terrorist in Iraq.

Now he is talking about Syria’s ability to Stir troubles. (Hidden capacities of Syria).

Tara @ 49,

Do not club Saddam into the same category as Gaddafi and Besho. He was a far more upright, noble and principled leader. I have said, one of the reasons why we are in this mess is becoz of our inability/unwillingness to openbly ally ourselves with Saddam and Iraq during the early 1980s.

Its getting damn sectarian, and as Sunnis we must stand by our own, loike Saddam, and King Abdullah, and King Hamad. Nasrallah has no qualms in supporting Junior, why should we condemn Saddam ? We should completely dissociate oyrselves from these fils de putes.

He claims that he was elected by the Syrian people and not made in America. He forgot he was given the presidency by his father after his brother died in a car accident. He has completely lost touch with reality. He also said Syrian TV is dear and sincere to the Syrian people. He is threatening the west that Syria has capability the west does not know and could not bear it’s consequences.

Khalid

No khalid. I am not sectarian, nor most of the opposition. Saddam fate was long due. He was as brutal as Bashar and Quaddafi. They all deserve the most humiliating fate ever. The Syrian president religion does not matter at all. I would vote for a christian, alawi, atheist or jewish as long as we get freedom and democracy. The new Syria should be secular with complete separation between state and religion.

I am listening to the P on the BBC direct. I think that I outdid myself in predicting the dialogue with SANA/himself.
Everything is hunky dory; I can go back to my nap and feel secure that Syria is in good hands.

I did not even bother to watch the interview or find a link to it.
what is missing is trust,and that can not be earned by speeches and TV appearances. Actions speak louder than words,and so far,Bashar had failed as a leader and he needs to give his chair to a transitional council.

He is talking about talking to similar countries….
Similar countries, Mr. President, are getting rid of their “similar” autocrats. Qaddafi is on the way out….

Talking about Turkey now. He claims he does not know the Turkish intents.

Now we are getting to the model of democracy. The Mouthpiece is asking him about press law. No ceiling, no yellow journalism (read that no criticism and no independence). Equivocation in defining what is healthy journalism. Mr. President, the market decides not you.

Now a pathetic exercise of criticism of state agency for not giving the press the truth. Fine how about letting journalist into your jail dungeons as investigative reporters, not as detainees subject to the torture of your goons.

Great, he is not worried.

That was a BS interview. Nothing will happen. It is the same crap as before. He thinks that he has controlled the situation, there was no security option….What the hell do you call 2500+ martyrs, 30000+ Detainees in your torture dungeons. He will not step down nor aside. We will help him change his mind.

Syrian Muslim Brothers claim that they were elected by the Syrian people and not made/supported in America. They have completely lost touch with reality.

SOURIYA BI KHER YA 3ALAM!!!!!!!

BASHAR W BASS, WEL BAQEEEEEEEEEE SHASSS

AKH YA BU HAFEZ, NAHNOU MA3AK LAL ABAD

He looked scared. Did not hear retarded giggles. Right eye was bigger than the left but no evidence of past stroke. He also looked devilish. I don’t think I am imagining this. I think being responsible for killing 2000 plus somehow changes his facial morphological features into a satanic shape. He looked scary.

Apparently, calls for reforms are just another form of colonialism *facepalm*

Apparently, Besho has yet to figure out the Turks, and so is incapable of formulating a response *facepalm*

Apparently, he didn’t grant the nationality to the Kurds back in 2002, because in 2004 some undefined, unknown forces tried to use the the issue for “political gains”…and so he slept on it until 2011 *facepalm* Will someone please tell me who these conspirators from 2004 were?

Apparently, every single law is connected to the other, which is why Article 8 can’t just be removed. And yet the law setting the age limit for the president didn’t require the modifications of any other law.

And when asked why some people scoffed at his reforms, his brilliant response was that sometimes an inappropriate word in the law would weaken or distort the intentions of a law…YE GODS ABOVE WHAT IDIOTIC AMATEUR WAS WRITING THESE LAWS THEN?????

One of the first things a politician learns is the power of oratory. It saw Britain through WW2, and it took Germany to heights it never dreamed of, and it inspired the USA to the moon.

But I guess junior was asleep in class that day. All the questions were prepared beforehand (duh), there was no give and take, or clarifications that one would expect from a genuine interview.

It sounded like he was discussing a history program, and not titanic events unfolding even as he sat before the two reporters, who read from questions no doubt prepared by Buthaina Sha’ban.

Proud (edited for personal attack. This is your last warning)

He also claimed that a “few” people had been held accountable for events during the early days. Oh yeah, name one? And where is Atif Najib these days, him of the “pull out the finger nails of the children of Dar’a” infamy.

“Proud terrorist dog and her boyfriend the soldier boiler are scared!”

This is the sum of your contribution? This is all your “intellect” is capable of?

Here is a lesson the menhebaks and their president should learn. It is better to remain silent, and be thought of as a fool, than to speak, and have all doubts dispelled.

Professor Landis said “Sunday will be a big day. Assad plans to address the nation on TV”

Sunday was indeed big. It gave new meaning to the word “anticlimactic”

He was questioned by people who are either afraid,or they worship him,there are many questions I like to ask him,they did not ask.
He said he is not going to leave,he claimed he is elected by the people(Wrong), He sounds suspicious toward Turkey,He said he will issue laws and laws and laws,if it turn out it is nothing but ink on paper.Alltogather there is nothing new.
About syrian economy he seemed to evade real question.
Nothing about what is going today in Lybia,nothing about the Arab spring,nothing about freedom, nothing about his brutal oppression, nothing about compromise, he was arrogant.He is not the one who admit mistakes.Nothing will change.

I watched about 10 minutes, then I bailed out. Nothing new. However, one has to give credit to the interviewers for hurling hard-ball questions at the president. They made him very uncomfortable.

If anything, this interview will most probably increase the people’s resolve to remove him.

I’m curious about when mnhebaks will admit that Bashar and ilk have no intention to reform, or to let power.

The most amusing part was the AlJezzera decision, to totally ignore the “interview”. A thunderous silence, as we say in Hebrew. Awch, that hurt.
.

“إن المطالبات بالتنحي لا تقال لرئيس لا يعنيه المنصب ولرئيس أتى به الشعب”.
Yes indeed. The Syrian people voted for him and lowered the age requirement for the president to 34 so he can assume power. That’s democracy.

“وقال إنه لا يوجد حل أمني للخروج من الأزمة التي تمر بها سوريا حالياً، بل يوجد فقط حل سياسي”\
Of course there is no “amni” solution for the crisis (remember when Walid Almualem exclaimed: “what crisis?”). Only a political one. This is why the Syrian government has been murdering and torturing people by the thousands.

There is one line of poetry that fits him perfectly:

يعطيك من طرف اللسان حلاوة ويروغ منك كما يروغ الثعلب

Moderator
Why do you remove the term :Soldier boiler?
Is’t that what Aboud has been repeatedly supporting?
And Tara has been posting that :she bites.have you seen human beings biting?
Is this your crappy freedom of speech?

That interview was memorable for how unmemorable it will turn out to be. At least in the last speech he gave us some delicious fun with his “germs” line, but this? Who after a week is going to remember anything from it, other than his self admitted incompetence when it comes to foreign affairs?

I mean seriously, you don’t want your president to say something like “we can’t discern their true motives, so we can’t respond”. So are your adversaries supposed to make crystal clear to you their most secret and innermost intentions before you can decide on a course of action?

Actually, with Besho, that might not be such a bad idea. The Americans made their intentions crystal clear after Hariri’s murder, and junior scooted out of Lebanon.

The Turks were similarly unambiguous in their intentions regarding Ocalan, and Papa Assad caved in.

And of course Israel has never been murky with regards to what will happen to the Rabbit of the Golan should a single bullet be fired on that front. Lo and behold, it’s been the quietest piece of real estate for over 30 years.

Leadership
Good leaders are known to get the best out of their followers, what do you call a leader who gets SNK into hissy fits.

The editorial policy of this site is biased towards the Men7ebbakites, it hides their qualities from the rest of the world. Those amongst us who complained about their vulgarity should have been careful for what we wished for.

FIFTY YEARS OF BAATH

No comment….

If you were a men7ebbak 6 months ago, you had to brain, if you are men7ebbak now, you have no concious

So Al-Arabyia is showing interview with Assad in half of screen while in another half “screen is split and images of murdered child and army defection are ongoing”, as Tara said in post 73.

Expected from them. CNN was a bit more subtle. Horrible translation though.

Agree that Assad lacks communication skills. Obama in his place would do so much better.

“So Al-Arabyia is showing interview with Assad in half of screen while in another half “screen is split and images of murdered child and army defection are ongoing”, as Tara said in post 73.”

They are highlighting the hypocrisy of the president.

President Al-Assad is strong and confident…………Radicals go to hell………
Al-Assad interview with the Syrian TV

Dear #59. Observer,
Wow! I am so impressed. Now that the speech is over, I am sad to tell you that you were right.

“President Al-Assad is strong and confident”
Reminds of how confident he was in his infamous interview with the Wall Street Journal.

SNK Revolution
SNK
Count me in in your revolution against the moderator’s tyranny. I am all for your rights to be vulgar, and to be shown as such.

Subtle CNN

ALES;
Does that mean that in your next conspiracy exposing post we will find that the center of the conspiracy is no longer at Langley and has moved to Riyadh.

So Long
SHEILA
Welcome back

Fox Hunt
SYR.EXPAT,
yes my friend, he was like a fox, a brown fox in the north pole, hard to detect, ain’t he.

Arab Spring is becoming a dangerous embarrassment to the foreign policy experts
Burying the Arab Spring
– Daniel Greenfield

It was only three months ago that you could hardly open a newspaper without encountering columns full of growing predictions about the revolution sweeping the Middle East. Now the Arab Spring is swiftly becoming the embarrassing relative in the journalism family. The predictions as silly as crystal healing and alien visitations.

In Libya and Syria, the Arab Spring has become a slow grinding death match between the government and the opposition. And the Libyan rebel on the verge of taking Tripoli has become as much a myth as the Gay Girl in Damascus, who turned out to be just another American leftist cheerleader for the farce.

In Egypt, the revolution has been more like a realignment, with the army and Muslim Brotherhood sharing power. Tahrir Square is over. The Western backed leftists who were meant to benefit from the coup are hanging around foreign capitals giving speeches about the importance of a movement that has already made them irrelevant. El Baradei is a punchline in an Egyptian joke, and the only one who doesn’t get it is Thomas Friedman.

In Tunisia and Yemen, the Islamists have a clear path to power. And if Libya and Syria do fall, it won’t be to the enlightened forces of secular democracy, but to a populist Islamic state that will make the Taliban look like secular humanists.

Bahrain has been allowed to go on repressing the Shiites. Turkey’s suppression of Kurdish parties is one of those obscure things unmentioned by newspapers too busy running tourism ads urging Americans to travel to Istanbul.

The most repressive regimes in the region have emerged untouched
More importantly, the most repressive regimes in the region have emerged untouched. Iran bludgeoned and butchered its protesters. Saudi Arabia sent tanks to massacre protesters in Bahrain. The UAE is still running its slave empire, and Western companies are still eager to set up shop in Dubai.

The odds are good that Gaddafi and Assad will survive their own civil wars. The message that will send is that it’s good to be a violently repressive regime. That Western alliances and human rights concessions create a dangerous weakness. And that no matter what deals you make with the United States and Europe, they will sell you out for the sake of some illusory democratic movement.

The winners of the Arab Spring will take that lesson to heart, especially the final beneficiaries of the coups in Egypt and Yemen. Mubarak and Saleh both made the mistake of forgetting what happened to the Shah. And not realizing that Carter’s successor was poised for a grander repeat of the Ayatollahs. Their successors will profit by their example.

There will be more repression and Western NGO’s will be stepped on. The State Department’s favorite local human rights activists will meet with unfortunate accidents similar to those so commonly encountered by Russian human rights activists. If they aren’t shot down in the street outright.

The Arab Spring will become an Arab Winter
The Arab Spring will become an Arab Winter. And the Western media columnists who drove the narrative will go on associating themselves with a grand revolution that failed. The difference between them and A Gay Girl in Damascus will be slight at best. They all worked to manufacture and distribute a narrative that had as much in common with regional realities as Harry Potter does with the British public school system. And they will go on feeding off it, writing books and articles about it, and giving speeches about it at 20k a pop.

The American and European intervention in Libya will become another footnote in history. An obscure one at that. Sarkozy might be crazy and desperate enough to send in ground troops, but Cameron and Obama have their limits. A divided Libya with the oil in the right place serves everyone’s interests. Especially those of the oil companies. But that state of affairs will not continue forever.

Western leaders who thought that Gaddafi’s insanity would make him easy to dislodge were guilty of misreading regional realities as badly as those who thought that popular protests in Egypt were happening out of an enthusiasm for free elections and human rights—rather than fixed low bread prices and more jobs. And quite often they were guilty of listening to what they were told.

Washington D.C. and Brussels are full of Arab revolutionaries who are eager to explain how with only a little support, their country of choice can become a beacon of freedom and democracy for the region. America has played host to a large number of these folks, some of whom were also collecting checks from Tehran.

But if conservatives allowed themselves to be convinced that removing Saddam would usher in a free Iraq—then liberals were far more foolish for believing that removing every moderately repressive ruler would lead to free nations, rather than the rise of a new breed of thugs and dictators. After spending five years tearing apart the very idea of regime change—they fell head over heels for the idea that what couldn’t be accomplished with a 150,000 soldiers could be accomplished with mob protests and bouts of self-immolation.

It was the same infatuation with democracy that had turned the wars against the Taliban and Saddam into grand nation building projects writ large. Unsatisfied with experiments in democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan—the Arab Spring was an experiment across the length of the Arab world. And again as the ballot box was torn open, inside was chaos, violence and Islam.

It is a more cheerful thought that the Arab world can be reformed, than that it cannot. That the problem is not a Saddam or Mubarak or Assad—but that there is something in the water. And if that is then importing large numbers of Muslim immigrants will not turn out newly minted Americans, but will repeat the same experiment with the same disastrous results. An experiment already approaching its hazardous point in Europe.

Western world leaders want stability around the world and at home. And they’ve tried everything from colonialism to appeasement. But regime change is clearly not the answer, unless the question is, “How can we make the Muslim world even angrier and more violent than it already is.” That leaves just the humiliation of appeasement, or a new iron curtain put up by the free world to shut out the unfree world that desperately wants to cross its borders and introduce its citizens to the joys of child murder, polygamy and terrorism.

Those aren’t good options, but the slow collapse of the Arab Spring leaves less room for dishonesty. What the Bush Administration couldn’t establish at the cost of thousands dead and a global war—the Obama Administration has managed to prove at a far lower cost. That may be its great unintentional foreign policy accomplishment. A thesis that lays out on a grand scale the futility of trying to bring human rights and democracy to the Muslim world, with obvious implications for Muslim migration.

The majority of the Muslim world is not interested in Whiskey, Sexy and Democracy. Rather they want Whippings, Sharia and Dhimmis. They want security and stability, and that can only come from either a dictatorship or an Islamic state. They want state subsidized prices and jobs, which makes for a stagnant economy. And they want Islamic morals policing and second class status for non-Muslims and women, which means there is no room left for human rights.

Both the Bush and Obama models wrongly assumed that greater democracy, through forcible regime change or by encouraging popular protests, would allow the populations of the Muslim world to show their true peaceable natures underneath. And that’s exactly the opposite of what happened. What they actually showed was that the grim brutality and oppression of the Muslim world was not imposed from without, as the leftist model had it, but emerged from within.

Arab Spring is becoming a dangerous embarrassment to the foreign policy experts
That is why the Arab Spring is becoming a dangerous embarrassment to the foreign policy experts. If dictators and our foreign policy can no longer be blamed for conditions in the Muslim world—then all that’s left is to admit the truth. It is the Muslim world that is to blame for the state that it’s in. And what is the Muslim world but the green brush of Islam splattered in dribs and drabs across the globe.

Poverty is their last stand. The claim that global warming and Western industry creates the poverty and resource shortages that make the Muslim world such a miserable and violent place. Pity that argument doesn’t hold up too well. If it did there would be Christian Africans ramming planes into our buildings and Tibetan Buddhists detonating car bombs in Times Square. Turkey’s wealth increase has gone hand in hand with its Islamism. The Gulf states are the richest parts of the world and the most viciously bigoted Islamic hellholes.

But after the decline and fall of the Arab Spring into tyranny and brutality, there are no other arguments to make. None that can avoid the central issue of Islam. And none that can shift the blame to us.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/39644

Radicals beware
Rdicals, didn’t you hear Real Syrian (unlike those 22,999,999 fake Syrians) commanding you to go somewhere, what are you still doing here.

I wonder if Besho falls into the 22,999,999 fake syrians or is he a class of his own, SUPER-REAL-SYRIAN,

Sour Grapes
That was a nice Islamophobic article Jad. really really nice. And from a well known Front Page Radical anti-palestinian writer.

Aboud, what is the situation in Homs tonight ?

Dear SYRIAN HAMSTER,

Keep it coming.

بعد قتل واعتقال الألاف من معارضيه.. الأسد: المنصب لا يعنيني
الكاتب وطن
الأحد, 21 أغسطس 2011 18:48

أكد الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد، في مقابلة مع التلفزيون الحكومي، إنه لا يشعر بالقلق جراء الأوضاع في بلاده، قائلا إن نظامه “بدأ بتحقيق إنجازات أمنية ونستطيع القول إن الوضع أفضل أمنيا.”
وأكد الأسد أن “وعي الشعب السوري حمى الوطن وأفشل مخطط إسقاط سوريا خلال أسابيع قليلة،” مضيفا “بدأنا بتحقيق انجازات أمنية مؤخرا لم نعلن عنها الآن لضرورة نجاح هذه الانجازات،” مشيراً إلى أن هناك حالات لابد من مواجهتها
من خلال المؤسسات الأمنية.”
وأضاف قائلا “الحل في سورية سياسي ولو لم نكن اخترنا الحل السياسي منذ الأيام الأولى للأحداث لما ذهبنا باتجاه الإصلاح بعد أقل من أسبوع على الأحداث.”
وحول الإصلاحات في البلاد قال الأسد “نحن في مرحلة انتقالية وسنتابع القوانين وسيكون هناك انتخابات ومراجعة للدستور وأهم شيء في هذه المرحلة أن نستمر بالحوار،” مضيفا “من البديهي أن تكون هناك مراجعة لكل الدستور سواء كان الهدف المادة الثامنة أم بقية البنود.”
وتوقع الأسد إجراء انتخابات مجلس الشعب في شهر فبراير/شباط من العام المقبل، وتحدث مطولا عن القوانين الجديدة، والفرصة المطلوبة لإتاحة تشكيل أحزاب جديدة، حتى يتسنى لها المشاركة في الانتخابات.
وتعهد لأسد بمحاسبة من تورط بالجرائم ضد المواطنين السوريين، وقال “كل من تورط بجرم ضد مواطن سوري سواء كان مدنيا أم عسكريا سوف يحاسب عندما يثبت عليه ذلك بالدليل القاطع.”
وعن موقف الغرب من بلاده، قال الأسد إن “الإصلاح بالنسبة لكل الدول الاستعمارية من الدول الغربية هو أن تقدم لهم كل ما يريدون وأن تتنازل لهم عن كل الحقوق وهذا شيء لن يحلموا به لا في هذه الظروف ولا في ظروف أخرى.”
وقال ردا على دعوة عدة دول غربية له بالتنحي عن الحكم، إنهم يمكن أن يوجهوا هذا الكلام لشخص تعنيه المناصب، مضيفا أن “من يقتلون الناس بالملايين في العراق وأفغانستان، ويخلفون الأرامل والأيتام، هم من عليهم أن يتنحوا.”
ومضى الرئيس السوري يقول “علاقة سوريا مع الغرب علاقة نزاع على السيادة هدفها المستمر أن ينزعوا السيادة عن الدول بما فيها سوريا ونحن نتمسك بسيادتنا دون تردد،” محذرا من أن “أي عمل عسكري ضد سوريا ستكون تداعياته أكبر بكثير مما يمكن أن يتحملوه.”
Read more: بعد قتل واعتقال الألاف من معارضيه.. الأسد: المنصب لا يعنيني http://www.watan.com/reports/بعد-قتل-واعتقال-الألاف-من-معارضيه-الأسد-المنصب-لا-يعنيني/طباعة.html#ixzz1VhOHsUMF

I hope you watch CNN International NOW!
.

Alhamdulillah, the people of Homs are not subdued.

Demos in Inshaat and Baba ‘Amr –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtmgIsefvho&feature=feedu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-tfOeMP8A&feature=feedu

HUGE Demos in Douma –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssJzx2ZG_qg&feature=channel_video_title

Good old Rastan –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BwtmPDF_XA&feature=channel_video_title

Conclusion – Buy your one-way Iran Air ticket to Tehran ya Bashar !!!

Jad #101

I really enjoyed reading that piece of garbage you call an Article.
I can’t blame the author for being a hateful Islamophobic racist, but for you to promote such articles … I’m truly speechless!.

Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim

Inna anzalnaahu fi laylatilqadr

Wa maa adraka ma laylatalqadr ?

Laylataqadri khayrum min alfi shahr

Tanazzalul malaaikatu wa-ruhu fiiha beiznihi min kulli ‘amr

Salaamun hiya hatta matla il Fajr.

Pray for only 1 thing – Victory. A prayer on these nights is better than the worship of a 1000 months.

`..عاجل: سيف الاسلام القذافي في قبضة الثورة بانتظار محاكمته`

GREEN SQUARE
In libya, it started in the Green Square, and it seems to be ending right there. Saif-Al-Islam (Libya’s Besho) is captured according to sources, and daddy Qaddafi is hiding along the Algerian Borders waiting for Sarkozi to tell his friends in Algiers to let him in.

The Libyan Rats (my relatives, and I am proud of them) said, the blood of the martyrs will not be in vein. It is not. Long live liberty.

The trials and tribulations of the Arab Spring will be told for generations to come. The Arabs will walk head high, and they will sweep all the dictators, their sons, and their regimes. No longer will they tolerate their dignity to be hostage in the hand of those who played with their causes, betrayed their dreams, squandered their wealth, and caused them so much pain for so long.

The road ahead is not a rosy one. But the youth have spoken, and they will guard their revolution. In the past, it was a bunch of military egos getting their tanks against the former government and calling their coup a revolution. They pulled stunts and believed their own lies. No longer this is the case. In each and every country, it was the people who revolted.

For those who believe that Men7ebbak are a Majority, and even had the audacity to tell us that Qaddafi is loved by his people, look closely at Tripoli, and tell me how many Qaddafi lovers you can see. When these thugs fall, it will be fast, and surprising, even to the revolution.

Good luck Libya. And may we get rid of our tyrant and of the family that has suffocated our country for forty years. As for those who accuse us of destroying the country, they will recognize that what they are doing is maintaining a regime that has kept the country under total demolition for decades. Let them cry over their spilled milk. Let them cry, it heals their pain, since we are not rising to cause anyone pain, only to stop the thugs from causing more.

Seif Al Islam,son of Muammar,has been captured,His brother Muhammad surrendered to the rebel

NK,
Don’t be such a drama king!
For me I understand it the other way around, it shows that the west create and support our countries` dictatorship and pushed our people in the corner of desperation where we will make mistakes so the west can promote us as savages and backward as the article described so they can justify for their people any aggressive action against us.

KT:

Those videos of demos in Syria don’t appear to be “huge.” But that there is opposition remaining is not in dispute, however.

Regarding Libya: it appears the third phase of the conflict may be wrapping up. Interesting to see of a fourth phase of warfare materializes and/or an Islamic republic develops.

//

القبض على ارهابيين يلبسون لباس الحريم و النقاب بسوريا
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqzg8pn9M7g
القبض على ارهابيين يلبسون لباس الحريم و النقاب بسوريا لك رجااااااااااال منك الو كل محاولاتكم اليائسة الجيش و القوى الامنية عم يتصدوا لها يلا منيح هيك بتنضف ا…
//

//via الجالية السوريية في اميركا Syrian People in Usa (Remove)

Syrian American reaction to Bashar Al-Assad interview 8/21/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7DZBGki9…
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad cannot be compared to any president! He is SYRIA’S president & will remain so until WE the SYRIAN people say so. He is loved…

1 of 1Choose a Thumbnail//

Syria is a different kettle of fish than Libya. President Assad is also quite a different character to Colonel Gaddafi. Syria’s strategic position in the Middle East positioned between Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq is crucial. It is a vital part of the geo-political jigsaw puzzle. The various Syrian parties must do everything in their power to mitigate the violence and although it may seem impossible they must do a complete U-Turn down the road of violence and enmity. It is very difficult to just shift from a position of hatred for someone that may have killed someone close to you but it is possible. The problem with Syria now is that if violence takes a hold everyone will be sucked into the downwardly spiralling vortex of evil. The path must be the one of vision, courage and trust building. The GDP of Syria can grow by at least 5% p.a. over the coming years. G-d wants the Middle East to be a platform of peace for the entire world. A centre of unfolding potential.

I repeat…Outside military intervention is the wrong choice.

Prayers for the Syrian people !

Inna anzalnaahu fi laylatilqadr

//
Exclusive Report: Private Meeting with the Syrian Ambassador in U.S.
by Kevork Elmassian on Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 6:39pm
I met with the Syrian Ambassador in Washington Mr. Imad Mustafa and his wife, and we discussed (2 hours) with other friends the current unrest.
The Ambassador met with the president and they discussed the unrest. The Ambassador said that Assad is convinced that the solution is a national one not international, because while the Western states are asking for reforms in the media, they are asking for other things under the table to end the unrest.
Jeffrey Filtman, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs called the Ambassador and told him the U.S. want 3 things from Assad and on the other hand, the Americans guaranty 3 things.
Syria should distance itself from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas and the U.S. will ask the Gulf states to give big economic assistance to Syria. The U.S. will ease the economic and political pressure on Syria and the U.S. will ask Qatar and K.S.A. to stop the media war by Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Hurra channels.
The Ambassador added that there is no foreign intervention by any state or organization in Syria. The Russians and the Chinese gave Syria strong assurances that they will strongly oppose any military operation against Syria.
Iran will not leave Syria as the Israeli newspapers wrote few days ago, because if Iran lost Syria, they will loose the most important actor which is facilitating the empowerment of the Iranian influence in the region. And Iran can’t loose the defensive front lines. Iran is very serious about the messages which was sent to Turkey, that they will Mobilize their forces on the Turkish borders if Turkey did the same with Syria.
About our questions why the security opened fire on the protesters. The ambassador was very clear and he gave his story relying on his discussions with many security leaders. He said the shooting was a result of 3 things:
1- Some (******) Security agents disobeyed the strict instruction to not shoot any unarmed protesters.
2- In many cases, the large number of protesters attacked the governmental buildings with sticks and stones while it is guarded by 3-5 security agents, which resulted of shooting by the security to protect themselves and the buildings.
3- Some protesters carried weapons of all kinds, and they shoot the security.

Finally, about Libya, he said, “remember my words very well, we will witness 2 Libyas withing one year, one is for Gaddafi’s son and the other for the so called rebels” The Americans and European will give the rebels the area which is full of oil and build good relations with them.

Kevork Elmassian//