Another Bashar cartoon

http://www.davegranlund.com/cartoons/wp-content/uploads/Color-Syria-assad-WEB.jpg

Good news from Syria posted on Ziad’s blog today. Our army is crushing the terrorists.

DAMASCUS: Banner day for the Orkin Man. According to SANA and confirmed by Wael: over 90 rats killed yesterday in Damascus area.

At Hajar Al-Aswad, a rat leader was sent to his favorite sewer in Hell:

Hamdi Sukkaro
Rida Bakeer
Muhammad Al-Aqra’a
Muhannad Abdel-Salaam
Taher Jum’ah
Wael Jum’ah
Mahmoud Abdel-Malik

At Douma, the following simian excrement was broomed away:

Na’im Dummarani
Hisham Al-Aswad
Safi Muntasir Tha’labi
Anas Khater Ahmad
Muhammad Baladi
Hassan Ne’matollah
Adib Ahmad Al-Ali

At IDLIB:

Taftanaz: They won’t stop trying to do the impossible. Here are the names of some of the rodents killed yesterday trying to infiltrate the airbase:

Abdel-Jalil Turkmani
Ali Badreddine
Jihad Muhammad Chammout

At Al-Mastouma village, inhabitants spotted for our soldiers as they killed over 26 rats.

HOMS:

Another French-inspired attempted infiltration results in the death of over 16 rodents leaving Jamra in Lebanon and winding up massacred at Al-Qusair. What a day!

Bilal Muhammad Tawil (Lebanese)
Nader Ali Samhat (Lebanese)
Ahmad Mahmoud Halabi
Radwan Muhammad Salameh
Ahmad Al-Ahmad
Mahmoud Ahmad Jarbou’
Muhammad Khodr Bahlawanji
Rustum Bahije Munawwar
Ali Samer Dayyoub
Ra’fat Abdel-Satir Qandil
Hamed Ali Al-Hannouti (Lebanese)
Muhammad Jamal Belqassem (Moroccan)
Jad Mahmoud Ahmad Al-Qudwa
Taher Ahmad Abdel-Rahman
Deeb Hinnawi
Muhammad Milhem Al-Danaa

HAMA: We can confirm the annihilation of all rats at Hilfaya firing on Mhardeh. List of names not yet available.

We can report the deaths, however, of rat-leader Suleiman Ibrahim Sulieiman and his cohort, Murhaf Ahmad Shniyyeh.

DEIR EL-ZOR – We sadly report the death by execution of three of our soldiers. The killers are being sought as we write.

أعرب المبعوث الأممي العربي المشترك إلى سورية الأخضر الإبراهيمي عن خيبة أمله إزاء التصريحات التي خرج بها الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد في خطابه الأخير، معتبرا أن خطة السلام التي ينشدها الأسد باتت تتسم بالطائفية.
وقال الإبراهيمي، في مقابلة أجراها معه تلفزيون هيئة الإذاعة البريطانية “بي بي سي” وأذاعها يوم الأربعاء 9 يناير/كانون الثاني : “أخشى أن يكون ما طرح لا يعدو أن يكون تكرارا لمبادرات سابقة لم تنجح عمليا… في الواقع هذا أمر لا يختلف وربما يكون طائفيا أكثر وأحادي الجانب.”
وأضاف أن “الزمن الذي تمنح فيه الإصلاحات من أعلى برحابة صدر قد ولى. الناس يريدون أن تكون لهم كلمة بشأن طريقة حكمهم ويريدون أن يتولوا أمر مستقبلهم بأنفسهم.”
the bottom line is that Bashar needs to be removed from his office, ideally through a structured and organized plan,but if the guy keeps on thinking that he can be president after 60,000 Syrians died, then he should be forced to quit his post, one well-connected fellow thinks that Assad is just buying time and raising the stake higher to win some concessions including certain guarantees for his family and close supporters.

Rufaida Alkhabaz
Husen Khalife
منذ حوالي ساعتين:
مشهد ستسجله ذاكرتي المكلومة ببلدي وناسي . . .كما ذاكرة مئات السوريين الذي شهدو الحالة ـ المأساة
في زمهرير دمشق، ثلج وصقيع (يقطع المسمار) صدف مروري في شارع خالد بن الوليد امام قيادة الشرطة، كانت هناك حشود من الناس وعناصر الامن تدفعهم الى الجهة الاخرى من الشارع بعيدا عن مبنى قيادة الشرطة. .
سالت احد الواقفين فاخبرني ان هناك سجناء سيتم الافراج عنهم بحدود 85 سجينا كما قال . .
توقفت ورايت شبابا بل عظاما لا يغطيها سوى الجلد، وجوه صفراء، اكثر لباس كان يسترهم بيجاماة مهترئة . . .احدهم شاب نحيل يمشي بثقل كان يلبس شورتا فوق الركبة وقميص داخلي (شيال) وعلى جسده بقع واثار جراح طرية . . .ركض اليه احد اصحاب محلات البالة هناك والح عليه ان يلبس اي شيء من محله في هذا البرد القارس. .. اكثر من شاب من هؤلاء الذين اهترأت عظامهم هناك كانوا يخلعون القليل مما بقي على اجسادهم ويلبسون من محلات البالة ما يخفف عنهم برد هذا اليوم القاسي كحياتنا وقلوبنا . .
ثلاثة شباب يلبسون اسمالا مهترئة كانوا ياكلون سندويشات فلافل على الرصيف وقد جمعوا اجسادهم النحيلة امام الحائط ودموعهم ملء العيون . ..
امرأة دمشقية مسنة كان ياسمين دمشق ما زال مزهرا في وجهها مدت يدها الى جزدانها واعطتهم ما تيسر . . .اخذوها وهم يبكون بصوت عال . . .
الكثير من المارة وبعض اصحاب المحلات كانوا يساعدون بما امكن (ملابس، مال، طعام) . . .
اين هي الدولة التي تريد القيام بمصالحة وطنية؟؟؟
اين هي شعارات لم الشمل وغسيل القلوب؟؟؟
ليست هناك حتى عصابة تقوم بالافراج عن مخطوف لديها وهو بهذه الحالة المزرية . . .
هل نقول عيب؟؟
لم يبق ثمة عيب

Amir
كم أود أن يقف المحررون الأبطال السوريون و الأسرى الإيرانيون الذين تم إطلاقهم بجوار بعضهم البعض …
لنرى الفرق بين المعتقل السوري الذي لم يبق منه إلا عظمه و شوهته حوافر السجانين ضربا و تعذيبا و الأسير الإيراني المعافى الذي لم يمسسه ضر
الفرق فقط أن السجان هناك كان إنسانا رحيما و هنا كان وحشاً خرج من رحم النظام السوري

Ghufran Assad won’t be forced to do anything. You heard his speech. The army will deal with the terrorists.

As far as Brahimi goes we refer readers to this:

“Lakhdar Brahimi has arrived in Damascus by automobile from Beirut. Security sources tell us he was dissuaded from flying into the capital because of threats by the terrorist rats to fire at any civilian plane. Brahimi, if you will remember, is SyrPer’s winner of the 2012 MIGUEL DE CERVANTES DON QUIXOTE TILTING AT WINDMILLS PRIZE. We expect nothing from this feckless scarecrow of a failed diplomat. Any talk of our president stepping down is a waste of everyone’s time. As an Algerian, he should know what it’s like to fight Jihadist terrorists, especially the Salafist type with which Algeria is filled.

“There are some derogatory comments about our redoubtable and reliable Information Minister, Dr. Umran Al-Zoubi. It has to do with a question asked of him yesterday by a reporter concerning the Brahimi arrival. Al-Zoubi told the reporter he did not know if the U.N. envoy was coming. He was telling the truth. Monzer says that Brahimi told Syrian General Intelligence that he would only come if the road to Damascus was safe. Monzer says that he was assured it would be. So it was up in the air at the time Al-Zoubi responded. So much for analyses intimating that there was ‘chaos’ or a ‘disconnect’ between the branches of government in the capital.”

Syrian,

How is it guaranteed that the prisoners released are not going to be rounded up again now the Iranian hostages are released?

The link above makes one’s heart cries. I do hope that there is is Hell and Paradise after death and Assad will be punished sooner or later..

They should be rounded up and executed. I am sure Military Intelligence is shadowing them.

David Ignatius of the Washington Post says it like it is.

The following will surely be applauded by some believers……

Ahead of Assad’s speech, the Washington Post condemned Obama’s failure to intervene. It’s “one of his greatest failures,” it said.

Post writer David Ignatius is a reliable imperial ally. On January 4, he proposed a “way out of” aggressive war he called “civil.” Aggression is aggression is aggression. Nothing “civil” reflects it.

He wants Assad ousted. He supports foreign death squads. He equates them with freedom fighters. Doing so betrayed his readers.

“As with everything affecting Syria, time is running out before the country collapses into an anarchic failed state.”

“What Syria needs urgently is a path to a new government based on the rule of law.” [definitely not Ignatius’s plan].

نقلا عن صفحة مساكن الحرس الجمهوري
للنشر مسرب
منذ ساعتين وصول 654 جثة الى محافظة طرطوس قادمة من مطار تفتناز لتوزيعها على 31 قرية في المحافظة والفوضى تعم الساحل تحت الامطار والثلوج ومنهم 27 جثة لحزب الله وجبل محسن والحزب التقدمي في لبنان .الرجاء النشر

Sorry Mr Hof, after what we saw and are seeing of the “respectable individuals” who made up the SNC and now the SOC, and what we know about the ideologies of the financiers of these groups, the provisional government you call for that meets these conditions may become possible in a year or two at minimum.

Unless the internatinal community is ready to wait that long, the only solution in a reasonable time frame is a compromise with the regime.

“Provided it consists of respectable individuals whose revolutionary credentials neither alienate nor frighten the cowed and undecided, a provisional government would in large measure answer the “what’s next?” question that immobilizes millions of Syrians. Provided it can establish itself in liberated parts of Syria and facilitate effective local governance while expediting external humanitarian assistance and the restoration of essential services and infrastructure, it can reflect credibility”

I guess there are people who were released who probably should stay in prison,but if previous examples were our guidance,we have to suspect that most of those in prison were held based on minor or bogus charges or to prevent them from expressing their opinion. When Assad in 2011 and 2012 released prisoners, his thugs kept political prisoners and educated people in prison but released thugs and drug dealers because those thugs were not a threat to the regime(!!).
people who carried arms and fired on other people deserve to be held in prison,but if you use that standard as “the standard” then you have to send thousands of security officers to prison, there are numerous cases when excessive and unjustifiable force was used by regime security forces but nobody,to my knowledge, was questioned or sent to jail.
For this ship to sail, people must believe that they have an interest in keeping it afloat, otherwise,it is a war to the bitter end,only true haters of Syria want such a war,
this is the type of news that dominates social media:
منذ ساعتين وصول 654 جثة الى محافظة طرطوس قادمة من مطار تفتناز لتوزيعها على 31 قرية في المحافظة والفوضى تعم الساحل تحت الامطار والثلوج ومنهم 27 جثة لحزب الله وجبل محسن والحزب التقدمي في لبنان
the other side of the story is that nobody is counting the dead among the rebels who have not been able to capture key bases in Idleb,however, the blood shed is likely to continue.

No anti-opposition cartoon?

I am surprised there are no cartoons of Mickey Al Khatib under the wings of Big Bird S.ultan Erdogan disguised in Arab bedouin.

Zoo,

Did you read Ibrahimi’s comment in regard to the speech? This was the first time he harshly criticizes Batta.

What say you?

Ghufran

“if you use that standard as “the standard” then you have to send thousands of security officers to prison” …. as well as thousands of rebels.
There would probably be none left

Tara

If that’s what you mean, I frankly think that Ibrahimi is totally out of touch with the reality.
Harshly? I don’t see that, disappointed yes.
Anyway he looks so vague, tired, powerless and depressed that I think that after his next meeting with the US and Russia on the 20th, he may accompany Mickey Al Khatib to Bakkourland now that E.T Ziadeh has reappeared in strength to take over the SOC,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20955252

A new Syrian deadlock

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/a-new-syrian-deadlock/article4291245.ece

…
That Mr. Assad has raised a political proposal itself indicates his recognition that only a political solution will suffice. His more vituperative comments about the opposition, which include calling them a Western-fabricated movement, will, however, not help, and will probably harden dissident and Western attitudes.

Yet Mr. Assad has a point. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have channelled weaponry to the insurgents, who now control parts of northern Syria, and neither Riyadh nor Doha is likely to welcome representative democracy in Syria. Indeed, those two regional powers may well favour extreme Sunni factions among the SNC over the others.
Secondly, the United States holds that the Syrian people’s goal is a political transition, and the European Union insists that that cannot be achieved unless Mr. Assad steps aside. Such stands reiterate the Western commitment to regime change above all else, and make it harder even for Mr. Assad’s strongest ally, Russia, which recognises the need for a political solution, to encourage Mr. Assad to negotiate.
They do nothing to bring about the only tenable solution, which will be one devised by the Syrian people themselves.
….

Let’s take a look at how the “rebels” and their media allies lie. This was reported August 6 2012. It was a complete lie. Surprised?

====

Syrian rebels: government attack kills 3 Iranian captives
Mon, Aug 06 18:07 PM BST
http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKBRE8750SN20120806?irpc=932

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels said three Iranian captives were killed on Monday during an air attack in Damascus province by government forces, and threatened to kill the remaining Iranians in their custody unless the army stopped its attack.

“They were killed when the aircraft attacked. One of the houses they were in collapsed over their heads,” rebel spokesman Moutassam al-Ahmad told Reuters. “We will kill the rest if the army does not stop its assault. They have one hour.”

Ahmad said that a number of rebels were also killed in the attack. “Our losses are bigger than theirs.”

Fighters from the al-Baraa brigade of the rebel Free Syrian Army kidnapped 48 Iranians on Saturday on suspicion of being military personnel, but Tehran says they are pilgrims.

The 48 Iranians, planning to visit a shrine on the outskirts of Damascus of particular significance to Shi’ite Muslims, were abducted on the road from the airport.

Insurgents fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accuse Iran of sending fighters from its Revolutionary Guard to help Assad’s forces put down the 17-month-old uprising. The Islamic Republic denies the accusations.

“We have documents that they are involved with the Revolutionary Guards,” Ahmad said.

The majority of those revolting against Assad are Sunni Muslim, while Assad comes from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam which is the main religion of Iran.

Several groups of Iranians have been abducted in Syria since the uprising began in March 2011.

Five Iranian engineers were kidnapped in the flashpoint city of Homs in December. Iranian media said they had all been released by last month. A group of pilgrims were snatched in January and another in February. Most have been freed, according to Iranian media.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny, editing by Tim Pearce)

Despite having being finally recognized as the “Sole…”, the SOC continues to be plagued by unfulfilled promises, rivalry and disunity.

Syrian Opposition Struggles to Create Union in War

http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian-opposition-struggles-to-create-union-in-war-zone/1580531.html

…
“It is the same story it was for the armed groups,” Zaein said. The councils “have been supported by different people and different countries and that is one main reason why it is very difficult for them to unite.”

“When somebody comes into the country with a million dollars to buy and distribute relief and food, people inside are not going to tell him go away,” he explained.

Zoo,

“معتبرا أن خطة السلام التي ينشدها الأسد باتت تتسم بالطائفية”

Now for the Diplomat Who is assigned the Syrian file to call a “head of a state” indirectly sectarian sounds like harsh criticism to me. What is the next step for Ibrahimi? Announcing a resignation? What after the resignation? The UN and the UNSC must pretend they are doing something… How about assigning this job to a woman?

In any case, I am glad that you did not find Ibrahim’s comment harsh…I think you started to develop some “tolerance” to hating Batta.. 😉

Ziad takes a look behind Assad’s speech.

==

BEHIND THE ASSAD SPEECH OF JANUARY 6, 2013; A STUDY IN STEALTH
If you don’t think he’s shrewd with a surgeon’s penchant for planning, look again.

Dr. Bashar Al-Assad, the sitting president of the Syrian Arab Republic, stood at the Opera House in downtown Damascus on Sunday, January 9, 2013, and addressed the people of Syria and no one else. He already knew that NATO countries would denounce his speech before it was translated. He has known from the very beginning that the enemies of Syria are the enemies of Iran and Hizbollah; and they wanted regime change. He knows that nothing he could do could change the atmosphere of hostility and confrontation enveloping the Near East.

In the Summer of 2011, a few months after the violent demonstrations in rustic Der’ah, the Syrian ambassador to the U.S. was the guest of honor at a demonstration in Dearborn, Michigan. The demonstration was nothing special with about 500 pro-government activists attending. Dr. Imad Moustapha, a computer maven and media expert, was asked as he departed why the U.S. was fomenting so much discord in Syria. He responded cryptically: “Oh, it’s really about three things. If we deal with those, the U.S. will stop”. One of the listeners nodded his head and said: “Iran, Hizbollah, Hamas”. Dr. Mustapha smiled and walked to his waiting car.

The U.S. would lead a psyops war against Syria by withdrawing disgraced spook-diplomat, Robert Ford, from his ambassadorship in Damascus during which time he managed to “out” hundreds of spies, activists and terrorists working against the Syrian government. Syria, in turn, withdrew Dr. Moustapha who returned to Damascus to tell Dr. Assad what the latter, the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians already knew: the American position was pinioned on a plot to overthrow the sitting government and replace it with a friendly, Sunni puppet regime allied with the Banana-Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

On January 6, 2013, Dr. Assad spoke while knowing fully well that his audience was his people. The Americans were either disconnecting from the Middle East, as Thierry Meyssan thinks, or they were continuing a proxy relationship with NATO on the lines of Libya, as we at SyrPer think. The Americans were not his audience any more than the British.

Here’s what he said in plain English as derived from the Arabic:

1. The U.S. and its allies, both European and Arabian, had failed to force his resignation. In fact, he was more emphatic than ever about holding on to power while defending Syria’s sovereignty;

2. The U.S. backed NACOSROF coalition is an abject failure. It has no more legitimacy than the American YMCA. Any talk of negotiations with this NATO-created abomination was going straight to the dumpster. Here’s why: NACOSROF is already showing signs of splintering. Inherent contradictions within its ranks are now becoming all too obvious to the extent that it seems to be floating in a void with Ahmad Mu’adh Al-Khatib acting like some bonding cement that is quickly hardening and withering. Moreover, the NACOSROF coalition is substantially penetrated by Syria’s intelligence services rendering anything done by it an open secret subject to sabotage or obstructionism.

3. The war in Syria is swinging toward the Syrian army and government. The devastating defeat suffered by the terrorist army at Damascus during the trumpeted “Zero Hour” campaign has led all military assessments in the direction of “hold what you can” and “regroup”. The same is true in Aleppo where some early advances have been reduced to an infestation in rubble-strewn abandoned quarters fit for vermin. They too are trying to regroup, but Syria’s army is becoming more savvy. And Dr. Assad is not interesting in letting the terrorists regroup which is why he is so tenaciously cleaning out Darayya and Douma, not to mention Hanano and Bustan Al-Qasr, inter alia.

4. His speech was a wake-up call to all his citizens and a demoralizing blow to the failed military policies of the Germans off the coast of Turkey, the English in Southern Turkey and the French in Northern Lebanon. While the leaders of the NATO countries continue to spout nonsense about Dr. Assad’s durability, he continues to stealthily pummel their terrorist proxies and on some days, killing them in the hundreds.

5. He now knows he has the full backing of Iran and Russia. His army is not tiring. His officers are confident and tell him so. His army is flush with weapons. His binary chemical weapons are safe but ready to use at any time, having been readied over a month ago. Iran and Hizbollah could join the fighting if he needed it. 40,000 newly trained soldiers in counter-insurgency have been absorbed into the Syrian fighting machine.

6. Syria is secure financially. Russia has been slighted by NATO and will not let its ally down. Moreover, unknown to many of the anti-Assad propagandists in the U.S. and Europe, Syria is sitting on over 48 billion dollars in actual gold reserves. Syria has no debt, it being discharged completely back in 2007. Syria has the support of Iraq and Iran and can call on Venezuela at any time to supply her with diesel fuel for army tanks and vehicles.

7. Syrian assessments of the FSA and Jabhat Al-Nusra is that they are not competent to fight this war and will grow tired, just as Saudi Arabia and Qatar will tire of the expense of paying for travel and wages. Syrian Sunni secularists (majority), Christians, Alawis, Druze, Armenians, Ismailis and others are terrified of an Islamist take-over and will not be deterred in ridding the country of these plague-carrying vermin. If they want a long war, the people of Syria are resigned to it and will fight it ferociously.

8. He also knows that over 50,000 troops from the Russian-inspired Collective Security Treaty Organization are ready for deployment as soon as the military situation in the north, along the Turkish border, stabilizes. Which is what we have been telling you about the up-coming, but much-delayed, Idlib campaign that will annihilate 20,000 terrorist rats.

Dr. Assad’s speech was a warning to the foreign conspirators, like the NACOSROF coalition. He said “you have no place at the negotiating table because you have supported violence and terror. You aren’t even Syrian!” He told NATO: “you have failed to oust me and our army is devastating the ranks of your terrorists gangs. I have no interest in talking to you.” He told the world that the neo-imperialist conspiracy to shape the old colonies in an antique mold is a rank, humiliating failure. His approach was stealthy…a thumb in the eye of the criminals who keep lying….the ones who tell us “he’s embattled”, “he’s on the verge of collapse”, “he’s surrounded”, “Damascus is falling to the rebels”…and all the other tommyrot they’ve been purveying. His was a speech hatched in the mind of a triumphant general prepared to rub the enemies nose in its own ordure. ZAF

Is the West serious in fighting terrorism or is it gambling with Syrians lives?

Zarqawi’s legacy: Jihadist rebels in Syria

Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the notorious jihadist leader killed in 2006, pervades the operations of the Islamist group that spearheads rebels fighting in Syria.

Published: Jan. 9, 2013 at 12:56 PM

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan. 9 (UPI) — The ghost of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the notorious jihadist leader killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in June 2006, pervades the operations of Jabhat al-Nusrah, the Islamist group that spearheads rebels fighting the Damascus regime in Syria.

Increasingly, the expanding and highly effective jihadist group is seen as an outgrowth of Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq that’s killing scores of people every month in an offensive against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Jabhat Al-Nusrah’s operations are causing growing alarm not only within the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces and allies are bearing the brunt of the group’s attacks, but in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey where jihadist groups are reported to be gaining strength.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/01/09/Zarqawis-legacy-Jihadist-rebels-in-Syria/UPI-98601357754164/#ixzz2HViaMJ3a

The regime’s indefensible. Sooner or later even the Russians and the Iranians are going to realize this.

The West’s position is that Al Nusra is bad, but the regime is worse, which is pretty amazing considering how much America hates Al Qaeda and its affiliations. As far as America is concerned, they’re BOTH terrorist organizations though only one is labeled as such.

Syria has no government nor is it a country. It only has competing groups fighting for what was once called Syria.

Actually the “West” backs regime change in Syria irrespective of al-Nusra.

Reve

Excellent analysis of the speech that shuts the mouth of the whining western experts and the coalition that is still trying to find itself a name, least an identity: SOC? SNC? NACOSROF? SC?

Maybe Hague could organize a FOS meeting in the Falklands to vote on a proper name for they “sole” organization…

24. revenire

What is more humiliating for the West, accepting that the regime change in Syria failed or accepting that despite Ben Laden’s death they failed to eliminate al Qaeda?

I guess the West has decided that it’s the first that would be too humiliating to swallow.

The exchange of prisoners included women and children held by the regime.  Do you still support a regime that jails children?  Is their any moral ambiguity here too?  And SANA mentioned nothing about the exchange… Isn’t that pathetically laughable, yet some people quote SANA.  Are they fooling us or themselves? 

—–

Syrian state media made no mention of the mass exchange but it was confirmed by the Iranian government and officials of the Turkish humanitarian aid group IHH.
….
Turkish media reported that a group of people, including women and children, held in the interior ministry building in Damascus had been released and escorted on to buses. Releases also took place in Latakia, Homs, Idlib and Aleppo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/09/syria-iran-exchange-prisoners

Let’s see who will jump?

U.S. urges Russia to back plan to oust Assad

http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2285861&Language=en

“Nuland noted, “So now is the time to jump”. Russian and U.S. diplomats will meet with the international mediator for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.”

Tara

I am not supporting war and the horrors that naturally always come with it.

I am saying there should be an acceptance in both sides that violence has to stop with no demands other than removing the weapons that kill people.

Still insisting on a forced regime change is itself a call for war.

I wonder why the swapping of prisoners made so much fuss in the media..
Does the media see a sign of a potential agreement on a cease fire?

Miss Piggy finally on the hot seat

Hillary Clinton’s Ego Trips

By Michael Kinsley Jan 8, 2013 10:29 AM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-08/hillary-clinton-s-ego-trips.html

…
Clinton looks awful and has looked worse and worse for years, since long before her recent hospitalization for a blood clot resulting from a fall. I don’t mean to be ungallant. It’s just that she clearly has been working herself to death in her current job as well as in her past two, as senator and first lady.

And what for? Despite all the admiration she deserves for her dedication and long hours, there is also a vanity of long hours and (in her current job) long miles of travel. You must be very, very important if your work requires you to be constantly flying through time zones to midnight meetings that last for hours. Of course our secretary of state is very important — so why does she have to prove it?

Saudis hypocrisy unveiled

The Saudis’ PR ‘Roads’ Show

One of a series of lavish attempts to throw sand in the eyes of the West

By Nina Shea
January 9, 2013 4:00 A.M.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337212/saudis-pr-roads-show-nina-shea

Even before the “Arab spring” revolts — indeed, ever since the 9/11 attacks on American soil by mostly Saudi terrorists — the Saudi royal family has assiduously waged a public-relations campaign to improve its image by sponsoring major cultural initiatives in the West. In 2012 alone, these included the opening of the King Abdullah interfaith-dialogue center in Vienna, an Islamic-art wing at the Louvre in Paris, and “Roads of Arabia,” an archaeological exhibition now on display in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institution.

All these are sophisticated and lavish attempts to throw sand in our eyes. At home, meanwhile, the Wahhabi-partnered monarchy has yet to shed its grossly intolerant ideology and policies toward other religions, which it so dangerously has spread to Muslim communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and other countries.

Taftanaz air base
The rebel operation against Idlib’s Taftanaz air base [see earlier] is a sign of the growing strength of Islamist groups, according to Syria analyst Asher Berman. But it is not going to stop the bombing of villages or lead to a sudden collapse of the regime in Idlib province, he cautioned.

Berman, author of the blog Syria Survey, said it was significant that the rebels managed to enter the base after only a week of fighting. Speaking to the Guardian via Skype from Washington, he said: 

It’s a war of attrition, the rebels are slowly gaining more and more ground. It shows that over time they will take the remaining regime positions in Idlib.

I do anticipate them being able to control it [the base] in the next day or two. But the pattern in the past, with this sort of thing, is that once the rebels seize a position like this, the regime will just bomb it from planes based in other air bases, and artillery. So they probably not be able to hold it. The real value is just taking it out of commission.

The rebels are unlikely to be able to use helicopters in the base, because of lack of fuel and logistically difficulties, Berman added. 

The involvement of Jabhat al-Nusra fighters and the Ahrar al-Sham brigade in the Taftanaz battle, shows that Islamist brigades are coalescing into a effective fighting force, Berman claimed.

It’s going to cause problems once the fight against the regime stops. They are really starting to create a true Islamic force. That is happening more and more … it is definitely a worrying sign.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/jan/09/syria-post-assad-plans-live#block-50ed985795cb42427dba952e

Well, on the Iranians released (the ones the FSA lied about in order to try to blackmail the government from attacking them) the media has spun the story as a sign of weakness on the government’s part and, of course, the usual suspects comment that Assad is dancing to the tune of Iran.

On the West’s bitter pill of to swallow my personal opinion is that, like in Afghanistan, the West has backed Al-Qaeda all along. Al-Qaeda can be compared to a Frankenstein monster that goes out of control (the killing of the US ambassador in Libya for example). Syria, under Assad, is a thorn in the West’s side and stands in the way of changing the governments of Lebanon and Iran i.e. changing policy in the entire region (that is what this war is about – THE WEST DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN WHETHER SYRIANS CAN VOTE IN “FREE” ELECTION OR IF 100,000 SYRIANS DIE IN A LONG WAR THAT DESTROYS SYRIA). Syria’s allies Hezbollah are a problem for the West. I don’t believe I need to give anyone a history lesson on Iran. Iran has been a target of the West for a long, long time going back to the 1950s when the West overthrew Mossadegh. The West likes puppets like Morsi. The West likes dictators like the Saudis. To hear someone suggest this war is for Syrian freedom is a joke. The joke is on anyone who believes that sort of fantasy.

On all of these points Assad was 100% correct in his speech. You might not hear that said on CNN or here but that doesn’t matter. After all, was CNN there when Moses parted the Red Sea?

The fact Assad was correct enraged the West.

Who are the deluded ones?

I believe many felt the West would send NATO in to help rid Syria of Assad. They deluded themselves on that point. Could it happen? Yes, I think so but there is a price for that action and it could be a wider war involving many nations. Iran and Syria have defense agreements etc.

I feel many saw Assad as weak but he isn’t weak. He is one of the strongest leaders on the world stage right now. He has the support of his people. I can’t believe the West didn’t know all of this beforehand. The West is not as smart as some believe. Their policy is in shambles.

On the ground the Syrian army is winning. The FSA was never really an army. It is a guerilla force composed of foreign mercenaries and traitors to Syria. It is always hard to dislodge such a force. Try sticking a comparable number armed guerillas in Britain or France and see what happens. If Assad ordered the SAA to wipe them out the SAA could do it easily but the cost in terms of human life could be hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The so-called Syrian opposition has no support in Syria – outside of Syria they do. Even among the rag-tag FSA the NACOSROF puppets have no real support.

Tara Taftanaz is fine. The reports of it being overrun are more of the same from war propaganda shills. You should consult other sources because this air base has been “taken over” by the FSA maybe 40 times in two years (all the claims were lies of the sort you might hear from drunken sailors). I can paste wild-eyed shrieks from tweeps from weeks ago stating Taftanaz had fallen.

It’s wishful thinking from desperate men.

Zoo,

“Still insisting on a forced regime change is itself a call for war.”

Still supporting Bashar to hold onto the seat is itself a call for war.

Peace will happen if he to step down. That what will save hundred of thousand of lives and all kind of revengeful acts afterwards.

هل تعلمون أن النظام الفاجر ترك 2000 أسير علوي من طيارين وضباط بيد الجيش الحر وتفاوض على 48 أيراني قذر

Reve,

The only desperation I see is the desperation emanating from your post listing the names of rebels martyred.

Care to list the names of the 27 HA deaths? I hope their mothers are not consoling themselves they will get one of the 70 promised. They aren’t..

Majed,

Not unexpected. And the stupid Alawi supporters busy worshiping their Batta. I pity them. The Sunni supporters might evade justice. They shouldn’t but lots will. They will make up stories of being coerced, etc.. it is the Alawis that will pay hefty price if they continue their stupidity and do not change course. I think they will hide their identity and never pronounce the letter Qaf the way they do after the displacement of Batta. Sad but true.

هل تعلمون أن النظام الفاجر ترك 2000 أسير علوي من طيارين وضباط بيد” الجيش الحر وتفاوض على 48 أيراني قذر”
it is all about the money, Iran paid somehow to get its citizens released, FSA probably asked for certain opposition and rebel leaders to be released,the regime refused, this regime never cared about the little guys, poor alawi soldiers and officers are targeted by the rebels and are not protected by the regime, Syria is doomed because Syrians have to choose between two classes of thugs: regime thugs and Islamist ones, if I was an alawi in Syria I will try to make peace with my sunni neighbor instead of being used by the regime as a foot soldier, corrupt alawis are already out of Syria or have a plan-B, poor alawis have nowhere to go.

Ghufran,

Yes. I agree that poor Alawis will pay the price. I use to think we are different but we are not. There will be massive retribution. I pray to God it doesn’t happen but it will. Not only the poor Alawis will be the subject of revenge but also of social humiliation. I doubt very much that there will be a real coexistence or tolerance for years to come. Every time Syrians watch crimes committed by the regime against them, the Alawis risk more and more. It is the nature of human beings. We see it already in the refugee camps..

hhassan140
Abu Iyad says the regime isn’t complying completely with the deal, in terms of names. But the regime is the biggest loser in any case. #pt

http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/hhassan140-abu-iyad-says-the-regime-isnt-complying/

My comment:

Perhaps this deal indicates how much Assad feels he needs Iran right now. To keep them firmly on side or a sweetner to get a little more from Iran.

Hassan Hassan is a less than reliable source. To hear Hassan tell it his boyhood home has been liberated but he has since had to recant that feverish dream. Sorry to burst your bubble.

No one of any consequence was released – a lot of pickpockets and other petty thieves although the brides of Damascus made it out:

https://twitter.com/AmalHanano/status/289136643246551040/photo/1

Another angle to the prisoner swap?

Iran wanted this issue settled quickly as it recognises the end game is near. It may have felt the window of opportunity was closing and this may be the last chance to act, thus pressuring/persuading Assad to act. Maybe even offered Assad further help or reassurances of support. The short-term future is unpredictable. If the regime collapses and a Lebanese type scenario results then captives could remain in captivity (or held hostage) for years/decades.

#36 Tara

“Peace will happen if he to step down.”
The magic wand, just like in Libya, Yemen and Iraq…

Tara , if it was so simple, don’t you think the CIA and the MI5 would not have murdered Bashar months ago. They know very well that he leaves now, a worse disaster will fall on Syria. That’s their dilemma, that’s why they are doing nothing, just watching and hoping.
Your ‘dear’ pathetic opposition is very very far from being ready to handle the chaos that will happen when the army will desintegrate.

Keep praying that this opposition finds an identity before being made irrelevant just the SNC has been..
Keep praying that God send weapons to the ‘good’ rebels, since no one is anymore before they are totally crushed.
Keep praying God that Al Nusra get enough weapons from Qatar, Libya and KSA to kill as many syrians as possible so they can execute the regime change that you and your western allies have been dreaming of for years…

I will keep praying the rebels decide they have far too much to loose, stop thinking they can win and accept negotiations.

The article by Fred Hof was very interesting in many ways, I would have given it a different title, something like,
” HELP WANTED: Desperately need political leadership to lead US manufactured, “Friends of Syria”. Please forward your inquiry to the State Department.”
Anyhow I stopped taking Mr. Hof seriously when I got to; “For more than 40 years the Syrian Arab Republic Government (SARG) was the transmission belt for the desires of a narrow, family-based clique”!!!!! Oh really??? How interesting, may I remind Mr. Hof that there has been a “family-based clique” dictatorship just down the road, it is called Saudi Arabia, the family has even given its despicable name to the nation.
Prime minister of Bahrain has been a prime minister since 1960s, how did he get that job? Because he is a member of one family rule dictatorship!!!!
Then we have another ” Family-based clique” where all the 27 cabinet members in Kuwait share the same last name, Al Sabah, pointing out that Kuwait is a family business!!!
So articles like Hof mentioning “family-based clique” in Syria is frankly insult to one’s intelligence.
As special advisor for transition in Syria, Mr. Hof should surely know that Syria is one of the most complicated countries in the region, with over 18 religious and ethnic factions/oppositions, much more complicated than Iraq, and alas the US failed miserably in Iraq. The destabilizing failure of the original reconstruction aims of the original US policies is a major contributor to Saudi-Qatar-Turkey actions vis á vis Syrian actors. Westerners, and shockingly those who work hand in hand with State Department like Mr. Hof, also tend to have a nasty tendency to map Sunni-Shiite rivalries along their original racial concepts (encouraged by native actors that stand to benefit), when all of their relationships are far more complex than which mosque one goes to!!!

You see Mr. Joshua Landis, a little knowledge is worse than no knowledge, not once I’ve heard from the Academia and so called expert analysts in Syria’s affair like Mr. Hof to mention the 18 factions, to mention the complexity of Syrian politics, no wonder that all road ends in Doha, and that big gas station of the world we call Qatar!!!! These are what we call “Friends of Syria”, how could that be?
I know my own answer, Mr. Hof closely works with Mrs. Clinton whose material and financial support through “friends of Syria” has resulted in unbelievable blood shed, let alone destabilization of yet another country.
Academia should also go back to their books and review the history of Syria, and learn that Syrian society is a mosaic of social groups whose interests and loyalties have often conflicted. President Assad, more than any leader in the Syria’s modern history, has been able to focus these conflicting interests and loyalties on national goals. Nevertheless, centrifugal forces, such as sectarianism, persisted in this volatile Arab nation, and the armed forces will probably long remain the ultimate arbiters of power.
Here is some food for the thought, a few reasons why the Hof(s) of the world should also educate themselves before they talk about opposition groups or nonsensical like “family-based clique”.
• Shia
• Ismailis
• Sunni
• Druze
• Yazidis
• Alawi
• Salafis
• Wahhabis
• Jews
• Christians
• Brotherhoods ((Ikhwan al Muslimin)
• Issam al Attar
• Shabab Muhammad ((Muhammad’s Youth)
• Jund Allah (God’s Soldiers)
• Muslim Brethren (off shoot of Brotherhood)
• Aleppo-based Islamic Liberation Movement
• Tali’a al Muqatila (The Fighting Vanguard)
I can go on but I think the above 17 ethnic and opposition groups is a good starting point, they dot the political, social history of Syria since post-Umayyad Caliphate and Ottoman Empire.
I seriously doubt that the United States and her Western allies can stall their puppet regime in Syria, US friends in the region whom have ambition to bring Syrian facade of democracy are antithesis of democracy themselves.

Tara, that’s for you to prove my point.

In Step on ‘Light Footprint,’ Nominees Reflect a Shift
Published: January 8, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/politics/obama-nominees-in-step-on-light-footprint.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0

But the hardest test of the light footprint strategy may come in Syria. It is where the specter of the Iraq war, and Vietnam before it, most haunts the discussion. While Mr. Obama made a passionate case on humanitarian grounds in 2011 for the American intervention in Libya — done from the air, and with drones — there is no serious consideration of doing the same in Syria, where the United Nations estimates that 60,000 have died.

Mr. Kerry, Mr. Brennan and Mr. Biden are all of a view that the United States has no way to get into Syria and, if it got in, no way to get out.

“But the president has also said that Assad must go,” Mr. Mandelbaum noted, referring to Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad. “And we’ve worried about whether, if he does go, we get another Afghanistan-under-the-Taliban. The dilemma here is that you have no hope of controlling events unless you invest in boots on the ground, and that’s what the president has made clear we’re not going to do.”

Tara

“stupid Alawi supporters”

What about the stupid Sunni supporters, what will happen to them, these poor Sunnis who will considered as double traitors?
I guess they will massacred by both sides and while the Alawis can gather in their coastal cities, these poor sunnis will not know where to go. Maybe they will have to learn the “qaf”..

I pity them even more… don’t you?

It is foolhardy to suggest if only Assad would step down the fighting would end. What about the Syrian government? What about the Syrian army? What about the terrorists? Will the foreign jihadis just pack their bags and move to Tel Aviv next?

How the Israelis at DEBKAfile see the prisoner swap:

Assad firm in the saddle, permits Syrian, Turkish Iranian POWs swaps
http://www.debka.com/article/22671/Assad-firm-in-the-saddle-permits-Syrian-Turkish-Iranian-POWs-swaps-

Thousands of prisoners exchanged in Syria

The three-way prisoner exchange of thousands of Syrian, Turkish and Iranian prisoners Wednesday, Jan. 9, in Damascus and four other Syrian cities marked a turning-point in the 22-month old Syrian conflict which has cost upward of 60,000 lives. This was the first deal the Assad regime and the rebels have agreed and carried through since March 2011. It was made possible by Bashar Assad’s confidence, in the face of Western predictions of his imminent downfall, that his chances of survival had improved against the forces determined to oust him, while Syrian rebel leaders grasped they had better deal with the hated Syrian ruler for any hope of preserving any of their war gains.

Altogether, the Assad regime released Syrian 2,130 civilians, including 73 women and a number of foreigners, some of them Turks, and obtained the release of 48 Iranians held for six months by the rebel Free Syrian Army. The FSA claimed they were Revolutionary Guards officers and men, while Tehran insisted they were pilgrims visiting holy sites in Syria.

The prisoner exchange was organized by teams of the Turkish Muslim extremist IHH-Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report, that the prisoner swap marked a moment in the ongoing transition of the Syrian crisis from an international issue with a say for the United States, Europe and some Persian Gulf emirates, into a domestic contest, in which regional mediators – in this case Qatar and Turkey – had a role to play. For now, the Obama administration and NATO appear to have moved back from the military arena and left a clear field to the management of Moscow, Tehran and Ankara.

Four steps marked this transition from the third week of December 2012:

1. On December 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the Syrian government had “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught and they are under control for the time being.” Lavrov did not say who was in control of the weapons and why he thought they were out of danger of falling into rebel hands.

2. The day before this announcement, US naval and air forces, piling up in waters opposite Syria from the third week of November, were abruptly ordered to pull back, a sign that the Obama administration had washed its hands of any military intervention in Syria without publicly stating this.

3. In the first week of January, 2013, the Syrian army finally repulsed a major Syrian rebel assault on Assad’s largest chemical weapons depot at the Al Safira military complex near Aleppo.

In this engagement, too, the insurgents demonstrated they were capable only of limited, local gains, but not up to capturing major targets such as major cities and military sites. They were therefore not equal to vanquishing the army still loyal to Bashar Assad.

4. The place of the departed US fleet in the eastern Mediterranean was gradually filled by a large influx of Russian naval and marine forces. And so, when the Syrian ruler rose to deliver a speech at the Damascus opera house Sunday, Jan. 6, he knew he could afford to flout the calls for him to step down and declare he no longer takes dictation from the West. He knew that moored off the Syrian coast were up to 20 Russian warships carrying more than 2,000 Russian marines – on top of unwavering Iranian support for his regime.

The prisoner swap of Wednesday may usher in a lull in the fighting, some of DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources believe – especially in consideration of the exceptionally harsh winter conditions besetting the region. During that time, the two warring sides may try and feel their way toward more local or limited understandings as well as replenishing their military and diplomatic resources – either for a final winning throw or to improve their bargaining positions in future negotiations which were kicked off by the prisoner swap.

For now, Assad is evidently here to stay. To remove him, the rebels will have to reach him with an assassin’s bullet.

Are the Saudis changing their approach, not asking explicitly or implicitly Bashar to step down?
Are the Saudis under pressure from the USA to stop paying the rebels? Is this why Bashar was so defiant and did not name Saudi Arabia?

“A peaceful exit is an Arab and international demand,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal told reporters yesterday in Riyadh after talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Kamel Amr. “It is up to the Syrian people to decide the conditions of the exit from power” of Assad.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-05/saudi-arabia-egypt-call-for-peaceful-handover-in-syria.html

Saudi Arabia mulling over changing approach to Syria: Report
Wed Jan 9, 2013 11:16AM GMT

The consolidation of Syrian military’s positions across the country and the withdrawal of foreign-backed militants from their strongholds have fuelled speculations that Saudi Arabia is considering shifting its policy towards Syria, a report says.

A recent report released by the Lebanese As-Safir daily has suggested a likely withdrawal of Saudi Arabia from among the list of foreign states that are funding and supporting the Syrian opposition.

The Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah’s recent meetings with Syrian officials along with Jordanian intelligence officers seem to have provided apparent proof for the case.

The paper touches upon Riyadh’s worries over the intensification of the crisis across Syria and the Egyptian and Saudi foreign ministers’ willingness for a political resolution of Syrian crisis, which is deemed as a major shift in the two states’ stance on Syria.

Communication is currently under way between Riyadh and Damascus with an Egyptian security delegation visiting Syrian officials in the capital, according to the report.

The speculation comes after Riyadh’s estimations about Syria turned out to be wrong and the extremist Salafi groups started creating problems for the Saudi government, particularly a recent explosion in Saudi capital for which they were blamed.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/01/09/282619/ksa-mulls-shifting-policy-toward-syria/

Zoo,

“I pity them even more… don’t you?”

I do not pity them at all. They are indeed traitors. While the Alawis are motivated by the primitive emotion of fear should Batta is eliminated, those Sunnis are motivated by greed and I personally have no sympathy to that. I expect we will hear “sob stories”. How thew were coerced into Tashbeeh , how they hated the regime, and the Alawis, and the Baath , etc… I also expect that the moment the regime collapses, they will drastically change alliance and will become the new shabeehas, working for the “new regime” if you will. They are the Munafiqeen that were described well in Muslim’s literature. They disgust me. I pity them not.

Now I was referring to sunnI shabeehas of course. Not to the silent crowed or the non-criminal supporters.

The USA is confirmed to be in a great dilemma.
How to pressure Bashar al Assad when sanctions failed, the military option is off the table, the rebels are infiltrated by Al Qaeda and the expat political opposition has not gained any visibility and credibility with the Syrians inside Syria?

U.S. not to provide arms to Syrian opposition forces — White House

10/01/2013
http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2285880&Language=en

WASHINGTON, Jan 9 (KUNA) — The U.S. decision to not provide arms to forces trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not changed, White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Wednesday, when pressed by reporters to explain how the United States plans to help speed the removal of Assad from power.
“We continue to take a hard look at every feasible policy option to evaluate whether or not doing so would advance our goal of hastening an end to the violence and supporting political transition in Syria,” Carney said during a briefing. “In other words, we look at all feasible options and evaluate them based on whether or not we believe that goal would be achieved.”
“We firmly believe that a political solution led by the Syrian people and supported by the international community is the best chance for a stable and democratic Syria,” he added. “We do not believe, at this point, that providing arms will promote a political solution.”
The United States has over time ramped up its assistance to the Syrian people through humanitarian aid and nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, Carney noted.

Tara

You assume that all the Sunnis who actively supported Bashar did that out of greed or fear.
Don’t you think that many of them were ready to fight to to make sure Syria remains stable, secular and independent from the West? Especially when they see what is happening in Libya and Egypt which is throwing itself totally in the arms of the West and the Gulf autocracies to help its failing economy.
Also when they know that the West has been plotting for years to destroy Syria in order to weaken the resistance and protect Israel.

You seem to be basing your judgement on your direct entourage or some thugs and you are quick to condemn all Sunnis without really knowing the other kind who are engaged politically with the Resistance and vehemently reject the West interference in any form.

What about the Palestinians who sided with Assad? greed? fear?

a comment from a Syrian reader on opposition site:
الاسم : شندلتونا
العنوان : شكتكن لله (1)   (0)
لك الله لا يسامح الطرفين وحاج بقى لسه انت معارض وأنا مؤيد والبلد تبهدلت و ما عاد تقملها قايمة لينزل سيدنا المهدي ستنو يوم القيامة يالي بدهن يستلمو البلد ويعملو إصلاحات ما تم أوسخ من هيك معاملة للشعب السوري في كل أنحاء العالم لسه والله كل يوم عبيموت فينا عرق من القهر والحذق و الضيقة بس الي طلع معي أموت ببلدي ولا اموت مئة موته باليوم هيه بقناص أو صاروخ خلصنا لا حدا يفكر سوريا رح ترجع متل نص ماكانت والله المستعان بس
Rebels in Aleppo failed to ” liberate” the city, they only managed to trigger public anger and increase destruction and hunger. Reuters published a very disturbing report from Aleppo that focused on testimonies from rebel fighters and ordinary citizens, the undeniable truth is that both the regimes and the rebels failed Aleppo, that does not inspire confidence about the future. It is nice to be optimistic but not to the point where baseless optimism is just another form of stupidity by denial SBD.

I disagree with those who attack Librahimi, I think what he needs is a stronger more sensible position from Russia, it is time for the Assad dynasty to end, alawites should switch sides if the regime refuses to compromise,however, we still need a credible peace keeping force, Syrians will engage in a wide spread revenge and counter revenge killings if no such force is deployed:
قال المبعوث الدولي والعربي إلى سوريا الاخضر الابراهيمي انه لا يرى دورا للرئيس السوري بشار الاسد في حكومة تشرف على مرحلة انتقالية في البلاد.
وفي واحد من اوضح تصريحاته عن المستقبل الذي يتوقعه للاسد قال الابراهيمي: “إن الاسد بكل تأكيد لن يكون عضوا في هذه الحكومة”.
واضاف انه سيتوجه الى جنيف غدا للمشاركة في اجتماع مقرر مع مسؤولين اميركيين وروس لبحث سبل تنفيذ اعلان جنيف.
وتابع قائلاً: “إن اعلان جنيف هو اساس الحل في سوريا.. نتحدث عن حل سلمي.. لا حل عسكري”. واضاف “كلما اسرعنا بالحل السلمي كان افضل لأن سوريا تتهشم.. عملية الهدم يجب أن تتوقف”.
وقال الابراهيمي: “لا يمكن ان الحل ينتظر الى 2014 يجب أن يتم في 2013”.
كما اعتذر الإبراهيمي عن استخدامه كلمة “طائفية” في مقابلة مع هيئة الاذاعة البريطانية في وقت سابق اليوم لوصف خطاب الاسد يوم الاحد الماضي. وقال “انها زلة لسان.. ولذلك اعتذر”.
لكنه تمسك بانتقاد الخطاب مشيراً إلى أن “الخطاب به امور كثيرة لكنه ليس طائفيا”.
( Librahimi will win support from many alawites who mostly want peace and the opportunity to live and let live)

Zoo,

I am talking about Sunni Shabeehs such as the Bari family in Aleppo. They killed for money. They are mercenaries or blood prostitutes. The people who have blood on their hands. I am not talking about the supporters in general. I do not wish them harm whether Alawis, Sunnis, or from outer space. You know that. People are entitled to their opinion.

And I do not personally know any shabeeh, Alawi or Sunnis. Except of course shabeeh one and his girl… 😉

Every time I talk about Batta to you know, I just smile..can’t help it.

Zoozoo said
the military option is off the table,
Mr. Carney said the military option is still on the table.
Are you trying to deceive yourself?but again you are just Zoozoo.

Zoozoo said
the military option is off the table,
Me. Carney said the military option is still on the table.
Are you trying to deceive yourself?but again you are just Zoozoo.

A student came home,his teacher gave him zero in his test, his father asked why did you score zero ?, the student said the teacher asked what do you call the son of Assad, I said Batta

From shabihas site

HNN شبكة أخبار حمص · 94,434 like this
7 hours ago ·
صفحات عرب البعير تنشر اخبار عن اطلاق سراح 48 مخطوف ايرانيا كانو لدى ميليشيا الحر في تركيا مقابل اطلاق سراح 2310 ارهابي لم تتلطخ ايديهم بالدماء .
الاعلام الرسمي اخر من يعلم كما هي العاده
الاعلام الايراني منتاقض بين النفي و التأكيد

اذا كان الخبر صصيح اليس المخطوفين السوريين (من مدنيين و عساكر) لدى الجماعات الارهابيه الاجدى بهكذا تبادل ؟؟؟!!!
https://www.facebook.com/homs.news.network/posts/511105268929669

Jihad Alkhazen:

يشترك الرئيس بشار الأسد والمعارضة السورية في اعتقاد كل منهما أنه سيخرج منتصراً من المواجهة الحالية إذا استمر في طريق القتل والتدمير.
هما يشتركان أيضاً في العيش في عالم من الوهم أو الخيال صنعه كل من الطرفين بيديه، فالنظام يعتقد أنه سيهزم المعارضة في أسابيع، والمعارضة تعلن منذ سنتين أن النظام سيسقط بعد شهرين.
بعد ذلك أزيد أن الرئيس اجترح معجزة في خطابه الأخير، فقد عارض الحل الذي اقترحه (واسمه الصحيح اللا حل) العالم كله خارج القوقعة (أو الفقاعة بلغته) التي يعيش بداخلها، فرفضه المجلس الوطني في الخارج وهيئة التنسيق في الداخل، وكل أطياف المعارضة، من الوطني المعتدل إلى الإرهابي القاتل، ورفضته معهم دول الشرق والغرب. طبعاً إيران أيدت إلا أن السبب ربما كان أنها كتبت اللا حل مع الرئيس السوري.
لا أحد بريئاً في النزيف السوري المستمر، لا الرئيس أو المعارضة، أو الدول العربية التي دعمت المعارضة لأسبابها، وليس لحماية الشعب السوري، أو الولايات المتحدة التي قالت الشيء ثم عكسه بانتظام، أو الدول الأوروبية التي لم تقدم غير الإدانات والوعظ، أو الصين المتحفظة، أو روسيا المترددة.
( regime sources denied that Hussein Harmoush was among the prisoners released, other names that were mentioned but confirmed is Tull Almalouhi and dr AA Alkhayyer, we just do not know, however, this deal shows how insignificant army and security officers are in the eyes of the regime and how influential Turkey and Iran are in today’s Syria)

That’s a pretty stupid analysis Ghufran. It isn’t like the government didn’t know what people would say is it? They are in the strong position.

The Alawi pilot( Bashar look alike) who was shot down 3 months ago was in a video last week complaining that all that time the regime did not try to even ask about him
He is in the video in a good health asking other pilots to switch sides
http://youtu.be/14y1Evb2IGo

“That’s a pretty stupid analysis Ghufran. It isn’t like the government didn’t know what people would say is it? ”
Denial is not a river in Egypt. Turkey won the release of 4 Turks, said to be intelligence officers, Iran managed to get 48 of its citizens released, some were ” security advisors” according to an Iranian source. Not a single army officer was released. Who is being stupid here?

Ghufran this is you reading into things you don’t know anything about and then PROJECTING your bias onto them.

As I said the government knew what would be said. They are in a position of strength.

Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

Syria sectarianism spills into Lebanon
Published on Wednesday January 09, 2013
….
Sheik Ahmad Assir’s skyrocketing popularity is threatening to turn some members of Lebanon’s primarily moderate Sunni population more extreme, forcing the country’s long simmering sectarian tensions to a boil.

Assir’s message is that Sunnis have suffered indignities — both at the hands of Syria as well as Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political group based in southern Lebanon — for far too long, and that Lebanon’s elected leaders are useless.

A recent clash here in the sheikh’s hometown, on the southern coast of Lebanon, showed that his supporters are willing to confront Hezbollah on a level not previously seen before.
….,
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1312836–syria-sectarianism-spills-into-lebanon

Visitor,

Catching up on SC reading.  

Did not know who Bette Davis is so I googled her.   

http://d1.yimg.com/sr/img/1/ba0b692a-3834-3218-8520-21d83d8cf1aa

The debate between Ghufran and Mossie

It’s like watching Eek and Meek, Micky and Goofy, Dumb and Dumber. If I had and gun and someone said, “Shoot the idiot first,” I would really be in a quandary.

Your daily Bashar cartoon:

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/RogerR/2012/RogerR20121207_low.jpg

Bette Davis Eyes
http://youtu.be/EPOIS5taqA8

@ Ghurfan

Revenire is both a troll and crazy. He favors the gassing of defenseless villagers. When dealing with him, always remember to insult him. Talking to him about Syria is mostly pointless.

“Revenire, you are an idiot,” is a good and simple phrase for dealing with trolls like him. For less creative and even simpler solutions, the silent option is fine.

LOL @ gassing defenseless villagers.

Assad thugs at work

Revenire, you are an idiot.

On a 2nd thought I welcome all Iranian “pilgrims”to Syria,each one captured is worth about 50 Syrian prisoners, it turned out the captured regime fighters are worthless to them

I agree. The regime will do prisoner swaps for Iranian prisoners.

But it will not do prisoner swaps for Syrian prisoners.

That’s kind of funny. What is this about foreign interference in Syria?

The guy is senile… Making such enormous “mistake” is insulting and unforgivable, he should resign.
He has lost all credibility.

Slip of the tongue’

Brahimi added that he had made a mistake in an earlier interview with the BBC global broadcaster by describing the Assad speech as “sectarian”.

“It’s a slip of the tongue and I apologise,” he said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/20131922372247765.html

What? Brahimi should be fired for telling the truth?

Majie

@52
“We do not believe, at this point, that providing arms will promote a political solution.”

Military option is off the table, keep praying

I am still trying to understand this prisoner swap. So the Syrian regime swaps Syrian prisoners for Iranian prisoners, except the Syrians are imprisioned by the Syrian regime and the Syrian regime wants the Iranians. What????????????????? Does anyone know if anything similar to this has ever happened in history?
All I could think about all day was the mother of Roni Ibrahim, the Alawi pilot who was captured in the north three months ago. How did she feel this morning when she read about all the effort that the Syrian regime put into releasing the 48 Iranians while her son languishes in captivity.
I have seen how the regime is now trying to spin this terrible faux pas. From, there was really no swap it was just a pardon, to, the Iranians are our guests so we have to take care of them first but your children are in our hearts. Wow.

#75 Mari

He should be fired because he apologized to a “dictator”.

The poor fellow (Brahimi) has to spend time and energy talking to Assad. It’s probably the worst job in the world. We can forgive him for that.

I mean, he spent all that time trying to get a peace process going. Then Assad goes and makes a stupid speech and throws everything he tried to do in the last 3 months into the garbage can. No one wonder Brahimi got angry.

Thats’s my explanation of the prisoners swap theatrical show

The Syrian government was planning to release Syrians who were jailed but had no blood on the head.

The Turks were very worried that the swap would reveal what they have been denying all along and hiding from their population: that there were 4 Turkish pilots held in Syria.

So they agreed with the Syrians that the release of these 4 Turks would be simultaneous with the thousands of freed Syrians so the 4 Turks presence may pass unnoticed in the media with the huff and puff of the 48 Iranians and the thousand of Syrians freed.

Right, Zoo.

In the meantime could I offer you a lovely piece of real estate that I own in the Bahamas? I can sell it to you for the cheap price of $1000.

(Apparently you’ll buy anything).

#79 Mari

If he is tired then he should quit. If it is to make “slips of tongue’ of such magnitude, he might as well stay at home sipping his coffee.
In any case I think he will soon move to Bakkourland: he got nothing from Bashar and nothing from the opposition…

To a certain extent, I agree. Politicians should be fired for telling the truth.

Brahimi has accomplished nothing. Not entirely his fault though.

Mari

No dear, I want a flat in Karachi in a country with an Islamist future, nothing else.

77. Sheila said: I am still trying to understand this prisoner swap….

Sheila, the government has frequently been releasing prisoners as a good will gesture for the past two years. Now a friendly state has found a group of it’s citizens hostaged by the opposition and the government again released prisoners for the Iranians release. What’s not to understand? The Iranians are friends to Syrian government and the Syrian government reciprocates.

Mari

Whose fault then? that’s his only job.
I thought Miss Piggy was useless, I think Ibrahimi is too

I can sell that to you too.

Send the money (in Euros or British pounds) to:

13365 S. Tupid Road.
London, England.

Hate murders on Christian Armenians in Turkey?

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/murders-irk-armenian-turks.aspx?pageID=238&nID=38733&NewsCatID=339

On Dec. 28, 2012, Marissa Küçük was stabbed seven times before having her throat slit at her home in Samatya. The assailant or assailants also carved a cross on her chest using a sharp object, according to some reports. After the murder, those responsible fled the scene with some of her jewelry.

Two separate attacks were carried out in the past month against two elderly Armenian women in the Samatya and Bakırköy districts as well. One of the women, 87-year-old Turfanda Aşık, lost an eye, while the other woman was robbed and severely injured.
…
Zakarya Mildanoğlu, a Turkish-Armenian researcher and columnist for weekly Agos, also said it was too early to label the murder a hate crime as there was still insufficient evidence. “For now, it is very hard to interpret [the murder]. It might even be a robbery case,” Mildanoğlu said, adding that fear and anxiety prevailed in the Armenian community due to the bitter experiences minorities had suffered through in the past.

“There is no need to write various scenarios. We should wait and see the result,” Mildanoğlu said.

Assads bedroom

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=438588232880946&set=a.212047472201691.50866.178379475568491&type=1&theater

Assad speech was similar to statements Ghadaffi made

Assad is not stupid. He knows that if he ever loses power, Syrians will eventually deliver him to the International Court, like the Serbs did with Milosevic; or he will be killed by an assassin, someone who’s lost a child in the war. Either way, Assad’s own survival is dependent on him hanging on to power.

He will fight to the end. The only way to save lives now is to hasten this end. This can only be done if someone from the inside kills him, or if there is significant foreign help.

Nah, don’t agree. He could have made a deal any time during the past several years to settle elsewhere (in fact all the idiots you see clucking about the big deal for prisoners said 1000 times Assad was going to Russia or Venezuela or Mars).

If Assad is murdered Syria’s patriots will go on fighting. You watch.

Please, take this news seriously…

Bahrain King the title of the Humanitarian Personality of the Year, recent poll show

http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/540914

last night in Damascus

https://twitter.com/RevolutionSyrie/status/289218962183553024/photo/1

Did Assad fall yet?

If Assad won’t be part of a transitional government, and if new elections are supervised by the international community, then I do not understand why the opposition is/would be against allowing him to run in 2014. Let him run. I am convinced that he will face the shock of his life, and will be forced to finally see reality.

I believe that even the few people who truly love him will vote against him for three reasons: 1) they will be ready for a change, 2) they will finally see other choices who are much better than him, and 3) no one likes to bid on a losing horse.

Discovering how many people are truly supporting him once he loses his powers will perhaps be the best punishment he will receive for what he has done to Syria.

Unbelievable. Assad swaps Iranians for Syrians he has imprisoned but not for Syrians imprisoned by the rebels.

Complete and utter moral bankruptcy. The guy has stopped pretending he is even Syrian. Talk about foreign interference, he has sold the country to Iran.

At least an intervention from heaven gave some peace

Damascus

https://twitter.com/NMSyria/status/289246669546061824/photo/1

https://twitter.com/SyriaInPhotos/status/289251677553446912/photo/1

Someone just said that Nasrallah must be quite jealous because Assad has made the day for their master in Tehran.

Just found this on a regime site, well thank God no pics of the eyedoc playing in the snow with his kids

this is the other reality

https://twitter.com/SyrianSmurf/status/289259236771381249/photo/1

photos of a maybe gone Syria

http://instagram.com/syriainphotos

Zabadani this morning

ma`damiyat al-sham this morning

Damascus last night

winter curses on Assad

given that the surroundings of Damascus are almost forest free, this will mark the aftermath even longer.

residents cut trees near Damascus for heating

I am interested to hear what the regime’s supporters on this forum think of Mr. Riad Hijab. Ignore for the second that you hate him because he defected. Do you think he could be a good candidate to lead a transitional government? If not, why?

Syria must be defenseless for America to illegaly invade, Rated:XXX
John Robles
Jan 9, 2013 20:31 Moscow Time
http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_01_09/Syria-must-be-defenseless-for-America-to-illegaly-invade-Rated-XXX/
Poised and ready to invade Syria and continue its plans for complete global military and political domination at any cost, the US is faltering and has yet to invade Syria. Most likely stopped by the fact that Syrian defenses are robust enough to effectively deal with the invader’s forces and that Russian troops are on the ground, the US is stuck in a holding pattern. The next illegal US act of aggressive war is Syria. Coming soon! Rated: XXX.
The West continues to debate what the United States should do in Syria and the US what options it has to bring about another interventionist invasion yet is continuing to have problems in bringing about the conditions it needs to give the green light to military forces staged and waiting to pounce.

The arrogance of those debating the fate of Syria from thousands of miles away, as if they even have a right to in the first place, is mind boggling. Who told the United States that they are responsible for deciding the fate of Syria or the Syrian people? No one. Who told the United States that they have some right or some mandate under international law to “intervene” wherever they desire? No one. Yet that is what they are doing.

Some pundits and analysts are saying: Use the Kosovo model, or the Libyan scenario, or the Afghanistan example, or don’t repeat the mistakes in Iraq. However each and every one of them is missing the whole point and that being from Yugoslavia to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Libya, from the Arab Spring to Syria, US intervention is not wanted or asked for.

The US understands this and knows the real reason it is going after these countries, that being resources and geo-political plans, yet it can not openly state such to the world.

Yugoslavia worked because the right propaganda was spread at the right time and the world was not ready nor did it have reason to believe that the US’ intentions were anything more than what they were publically touting. Since then every pretext for invading Yugoslavia has been found and proven to have been false and self-created by the US whose real goal was to carry out the geo-political redesigning of the Balkans.

It became clear in Yugoslavia and in what has taken place since then in that region that the United States has one thing in mind when carrying out their interventionist invasions and that is control of resources and the advancement of geopolitical ambitions and position.

If anyone doubts look at who they supported and continue to support in Serbia and in Kosovo, Muslim extremists, drug traffickers and black-market organ traders. Why? Because the US is able to manipulate and “work” with these elements, whereas Christian Serbians who lean geopolitically towards Russia are a bit more difficult to manipulate and bend to the American will.

We can see this same kind of thinking all over the world and in particular in the Middle East. The United States has no real interest in human rights or in oppressed peoples, that is a proven given, what it does care about is resources, ease of manipulation and geo-political clout.

Yugoslavia was a watershed moment for NATO and the US and the more or less success of the operation emboldened the US to attempt to do more. To launch a war, reshape part of Europe, devastate a people and do so all on the whim of a president who wanted to distract the electorate from a sex-scandal, seemed bold and dangerous, but it more or less worked.

There were doubters and there were detractors and the destruction of Yugoslavia did not have the broad support that the planners in Washington had hoped for. So a group of Neo-Conservatives was tasked with studying the issue of how to bring about the pre-text for a global war of domination. Those in power were tired of the United Nations and the international community and even the American electorate always sticking their noses into everything and asking for reasons and justifications, they wanted free-reign.

So those Neo-Conservatives, calling themselves the Project for the New American Century came up with a plan for complete and total world domination. The only problem as they saw it was that to allow for the implementation of the plan, after all what they were doing was illegal, would require a catalyst, and as the called it themselves, “A new Pearl Harbor!”.

The carefully planned and orchestrated events of 9-11 were the catalyst that they needed to launch an open ended and endless “War on Terror” that had no borders and allowed for anyone to become a target. First on the list was the invasion of Iraq and second Afghanistan, Hussein was the first target because he had changed all oil trade in Iraq to the Euro the day before the invasion and the United Nations and International inspectors already knew that Hussein had no weapons with which to fight back.

Afghanistan was another story but it did not really matter because the Taliban, like al-Qaeda had always been on the US payroll and wiping out that little backward country, as the US military planners thought, would be no problem. That little invasion took place over ten years ago and the US is still in Afghanistan and has been completely defeated.

Then we have the case of Libya, another country that had agreed to US inspections for those evil WMDs and had proven it did not possess weapons and then was invaded after changing its oil trade to the Euro. Libya had long been on the US wish list of countries to invade but the problem was that by then the US had pretty much lost of the capital it had gained from the orchestrated events of 9-11, and people started questioning.

Now we have the Syrian “intervention”, and everything that the United States now does is being questioned. The world has seen one act of aggressive invasion after the other carried out by the US and NATO and has quite frankly had enough.

Why hasn’t the US invaded Syria yet? One reason is you and I. Every false flag plan they come up with, we are there to expose it. Every false and sanctimonious move they make to allow them to invade and rape another country we are there to document. We know they are funding terrorists and mercenaries and that the Syrian people themselves do not want America. Lastly Russia is stopping it, by giving the Syrian people what Libya and Iraq did not have, the tools and the ways and means to defend themselves and defend their country.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=539683616042505&set=a.240063299337873.70006.240026246008245&type=1&theater

Taftanaz update.

That’s some update there champ. Don’t hurt yourself with that tank.

شنت الصحف السورية اليوم الخميس هجوماً عنيفاً على الموفد الدولي العربي الأخضر الإبراهيمي بعد انتقاده طرح الرئيس بشار الاسد لحل الأزمة في بلاده، معتبرة أنه “نزع قناع الحيادية” وكشف عن “وجهه الحقيقي” الذي يرى الأزمة “بعين واحدة تلائم اسياده”.

وتحت عنوان “المبعوث الاممي يخلع عن نفسه… ثوب الحياد ويكشف عورته السياسية”، قالت صحيفة “الوطن” الخاصة القريبة من النظام إن الإبراهيمي نزع “قناع النزاهة والحيادية الذي ارتداه منذ تعيينه خلفاً لكوفي أنان، وكشف عن وجهه الحقيقي الذي يرى الأزمة السورية بعين واحدة تلائم أسياده”.

وأضافت أن الموفد الدولي “فضح نفسه، فتبين أنه ليس إلا أداة لتنفيذ سياسة بعض الدول الغربية والإقليمية تجاه سوريا”.

وأكدت صحيفة “البعث” الناطقة باسم الحزب الحاكم أن سوريا “مصممة على اجتراح معجزة الحل السياسي” وتمد يدها “لكل مخلص يريد مساعدتها على إنجاز خطتها الوطنية للحل السياسي”.

ورفضت الصحيفة في المقابل “كل مساعدة مزعومة أو ملغومة على طريقة الدول التي تدعي ظاهرياً حرصها على حل الأزمة السياسية، وتعمل في السر على إذكاء نارها عبر الاستمرار في تصدير الإرهاب إلى سوريا وتمويله، أو على طريقة (…) الإبراهيمي الذي أكد تصريحه الأخير إنه يستمع إلى صوت تلك الدول أكثر بكثير مما يستمع إلى صوت الشعب السوري المحترق بنار الأزمة”.

وتحدثت صحيفة “الثورة” الحكومية عن دور بريطاني “في تنسيق أمر العمليات الأميركي للمرحلة المقبلة”، بعد فشل الدور الفرنسي “في قيادة الحملة الكونية المنظمة لاستهداف سوريا”، مشيرة إلى “تناغم الإبراهيمي” مع هذا الدور، “كجزء من التعويض الغربي الفاشل وإعادة تجميع الأوراق”.

وأضافت أن جديد المرحلة المقبلة “الجوكر البريطاني مع احتفاظها ببيدق المبعوث الأممي”.

وتستضيف بريطانيا منذ يوم أمس اجتماعاً مغلقاً يشارك فيه خبراء ومسؤولون في المعارضة السورية، تحضيراً لمرحلة

[just posted to Syria Liberty aggregator, no link to original. SANA will have been readying this festival of denunciation since Brahimi’s deparature. The Palace must have been mightily pissed at the envoy’s nasty comments. If he were Syrian, one could slap him in Tadmor for ‘insulting the dignity of the State and its symbols’]

94.# HOPEFUL

Reality please. It’s gone way, way past that. Bashar Assad will never be physically safe to run as a normal election candidate in Syria. And it wouldn’t matter which way any election was run, the international community would not accept his canditature as legitimate.

HERE, INSTEAD

Focus on Bashar’s his bloodthirsty war criminal Uncle Rifaat Assad and his sleazy, greasy son Ribal who are sitting in Rifaat’s 10 million pound Mayfair mansion high on hallucinations about returning to power through manipulating the post-Bashar Assad system in Syria.

Ribal is using his father’s stolen millions to play a fake game of condemning his cousin Bashar and running two sham organizations in London:

1. The Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria (ODFS) which describes itself as an “independent body, which promotes democracy, freedom and human rights in Syria and the Middle East”.

http://www.odf-syria.org/

And 2. The Imam Foundation described as “a non-partisan and not for profit organisation, which aims to promote dialogue to strengthen international understanding and co-existence through the exchange of ideas, people, culture and religion.”

http://www.iman-worldwide.org/

Excerpt from a media report: “To Ribal {Assad}, as he told Channel 4 News, [his father] Rifaat is a democrat and has been calling for democracy since the 1970s. Perhaps nobody heard him over the sound of tank fire”

Read these stories about the Assads in the UK and feel nausea and rage:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/rifaat-assad-syria-parliament
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8571164/Syrias-Butcher-of-Hama-living-in-10-million-Mayfair-townhouse.html

Syrian refugee’s astonishing story of survival

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20962910

Even the Muppets sing against Assad

http://t.co/emRaaclN

“Al-Akhbar writes that new evidence has surfaced regarding protester deaths and prison escapes during the revolution. Omar Marwan, head of a fact-finding committee tasked with investigating the deaths, is reported as saying that foreign infiltrators took part in attacks on 11 prisons allegedly to free Hamas and Hezbollah members. Regarding a Muslim Brotherhood team called “Group 95″ that is accused of committing violent acts during the revolution, Marwan says no such group is mentioned in the committee’s report but the panel is looking into the matter.”
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/thursday-s-papers-weather-gets-top-billing-rain-paralyzes-capital
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/govt-official-acknowledges-brotherhood-group-95

Ghufran, thanks for posting at #60. If Tull Almalouhi has been released, there will be a lot of happy Syriams who have been agitating for her release for a long time. Her crime was ‘spying’ (though that is not the rap or the crime announced in the Syrian Penal Code).

If AA AlKhayr also released, this also puts the lie to those who claimed he was seized by “armed gangs.”

You mentioned regime sources — hope they have a record of reliability. Do you remember where you saw this news?

According to the BBC, the Syrian government has not said anything about the swap. Housecleaning at SANA?

These are what we Western hypocrites would call ‘political prisoners.’

I wonder if any of these names will be on the list of released: Bilal Nabulsi, Bahzad Shako, Mohammad Ahmad Yousef, Sara Joum’a, Batoul Joum’a, Dania Ozon, and Rami Hennawi – all of Haytham Mannah’s NCB detained by “armed gangs” back in September.

Thanks.

A PS to my item above about Rifaat and Ribal Assad (#106).

The author of one of the articles linked above exposing them, Chris Doyle, the Director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), writes about Ribal Assad’s entourage of paid thugs.

Doyle describes how Ribal reacted to the exposure with a furious campaign of defamation and intimidation against him:

http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/2011090411860/Opinion/syria-lies-and-slurs-for-those-who-dare-to-challenge-ribal-and-rifat-assad.html

Those wonderful poster makers of Kafranbel again:

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/multimedia/pictures/detail.dot?mediaInode=a51525a0-f866-44ec-874c-8ccc9cc9f6ea

http://www.vosizneias.com/120942/2013/01/05/1829-syria-president-assad-to-give-speech-sunday

In all of the above, there are various reports of the Iranians running around trying to insert themselves into any discussions. Salihi is in Cairo to try to put Iran back in the discussion phase.

In reality, the speech of the boy Prethident has done the opposition a great favor. It was so one sided and so detached from reality that not even the regime supporters of Russia and Iran are capable of working with it.

The denunciation of the Lakhdar are coming to a great pitch. Not even General Hteit in his latest article on Cham Press is convincing about the survival of the regime.

My question is for ZOO, what will happen to your deity once it falls and is either killed, exiled in Tehran, or taken shackled to court?

WIll you have an apoplexy? I do believe that the cult of worshiping the leader as either God incarnate on earth or the so called “Bab” that has direct access to the Mahdi is so ingrained that any dissent is not possible.

There is clearly no end in sight. There is no solution as long as a single remnant of this regime remain in place.

Justice for Hamza

A new Mukhabarat Al Nusra version is born!

Syria’s rebels form their own secret police

Mariam Karouny Reuters
http://www.courant.com/news/nation-world/sns-rt-us-syria-crisis-mukhabaratbre9090k4-20130110,0,4513498.story
8:04 a.m. EST, January 10, 2013

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Just the mention of the word would send shivers down the spine of Syrians: “mukhabarat”, or secret police.

Abuses by President Bashar al-Assad’s feared security units were among the reasons Syrians took to the streets in March 2011, leading to an uprising that has become a civil war.
But now some of the rebels fighting Assad say they have set up a mukhabarat of their own to “protect the revolution”, monitor sensitive military sites and gather military information to help rebels plan attacks against government forces.
…
“We formally formed the unit in November. It provides all kind of information to (opposition) politicians and fighters. We are independent and just serve the revolution,” said a rebel intelligence officer who goes under the name Haji.

Rebel commanders had put Reuters in touch with Haji, who is based in Syria, via Skype on condition he not be identified.

Haji said most of the rebel mukhabarat’s members were army defectors and former intelligence officers, and that the information they gathered was distributed to all anti-Assad factions and rebel brigades without discrimination.

However, the organization appears to operate independently from the main opposition Syrian National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army, effectively answering to itself.

Haji was careful to distinguish between its methods and those of the secret police under Assad, saying he was aware of the feared reputation of the government’s internal spy services.

“Our work is organized, we have an internal law and we are committed to international laws and human rights,” he said, speaking briefly over Skype.

Assad’s mukhabarat – a blanket term for an array of sometimes overlapping and mutually mistrustful security services – that has helped keep his father before him in power for more than four decades, stamping out dissent and insulating Syria from the frequent military coups that had plagued it previously.

CLANDESTINE ACTIVITY

The new rebel body has operated secretly for months, Haji said, helping fighters carry out attacks on government targets.

He did not specifically claim credit for a bomb attack on a security headquarters in Damascus in July that killed five of Assad’s top security officials, including his defense minister and his brother-in-law, who was an intelligence chief.

Haji declined to disclose details of the rebel agency, but said it operated across Syria, including in Aleppo and Idlib in the north, Deir al-Zor in the east and the capital Damascus, adding: “We have our spies among the regime who are providing us with information that we need, including military information.”

Observer #112

Your concerns about my health move me to tears…

Hague: Lethal or non-lethal, that is the question

Hague: ‘Options open’ on military support for Syrian rebels
William Hague in the Commons William Hague said the UK had a “moral obligation” to help save lives in Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20969386

The UK has not excluded providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition, should the conflict worsen, William Hague has said.

He told MPs the UK would look to amend the EU arms embargo so “additional assistance” was “not closed off”.

He also pledged an additional £2m of “non-lethal” support to the Syrian opposition and civil society.

Labour welcomed the government’s efforts to support political transition in Syria.

Kafranbel angels at work

http://youtu.be/nJNR6WIh7tQ

Fantastic video on the poster makers of Kafranbel, thank you ANNIE (#119).

I hope a museum will be made of their work. It is an important part of Syrian history.

Islamic emirate or democratic state?

Islamists are playing a key role in the Syrian uprising, but are they seeking to create an Islamic emirate or a genuinely democratic state, writes Bassel Oudat

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/905/19/Islamic-emirate-or-democratic-state-.aspx

The Islamists are playing various roles in the uprising against the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, part of a spectrum of political forces that have turned to religion as a way of confronting oppression and corruption writes Bassel Oudat . The most influential of these groups are the armed Islamist forces, most prominently the Al-Nusra [Victory] Front and the groups associated with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

The armed opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA), mostly composed of military personnel who have defected from the regular army, is not an organised force with a clear chain of command, but instead consists of various decentralised brigades. Among these are groups from various ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds, and the Islamist groups are prominent among these.

Since early in the uprising, the Syrian regime has been trying to convince the outside world that the revolution has been infiltrated by religious fundamentalists and extremists, repeatedly referring to the Al-Nusra Front, until recently an unknown entity, as allegedly being linked to Al-Qaeda. The regime has also accused the front of carrying out bombings that have killed dozens of civilians.

However, some of those paraded on official Syrian television as members of the Al-Nusra Front and responsible for attacks were later found to be members of the security apparatus or of regime militias. Analysts believe that the regime has let the Al-Nusra Front claim it is entering a sectarian war, aiming to partition the country on a sectarian basis, in order to discredit it.
…

Erdogan is worried about his election as the S.ultan in 2014 and therefore impatient in “solving” the PKK and the Syria’s problem at any cost, including allowing terrorists to pass in Syria.

For Obama, the Key to Damascus May Lie in Ankara

By Soner Cagaptay
Jan 9 2013, 8:14 AM ET 1
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/for-obama-the-key-to-damascus-may-lie-in-ankara/266969/

The U.S. must rein in Turkey before a conflagration further complicates America’s options toward the Syrian civil war.

…
Erdogan is savvy enough not to launch a full-scale military invasion of Syria. Such an adventure would surpass Turkey’s economic and military capacity. But who can guarantee that he will not go for a limited engagement, taking over a sliver of territory across the border in a desperate bid to secure badly needed security and domestic prestige?

If not coordinated with the United States, such Turkish steps will complicate U.S. Syria policy. For starters, an impetuous move on Turkey’s part would force Washington and Ankara to hash out their “day after” policies before having a chance to work out differences of views on the role of opposition elements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

A permanent envoy would ensure that Ankara and Washington are on the same page when it comes to dealing with Assad. As an indirect benefit, a solid relationship with Turkey in Syria could also pave the way for better U.S.-Turkish cooperation in Iraq and Iran. In short, appointing a Syria envoy to Turkey is a small investment that will pay dividends for both countries.

Erdogan’s quick way to solve the PKK problem.

Three PKK members killed in Paris attack

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/three-pkk-members-killed-in-paris-attack.aspx?pageID=238&nID=38748&NewsCatID=338

Sakine Cansız, one of the PKK founders in 1978, Brussels-based Kurdistan National Congress’ (KNK) Paris representative Fidan Doğan, and Leyla Söylemez were found dead in the office, located near Gare du Nord station.

Details of more shocking damage and theft of highly significant items that are part of the world’s precious heritage in Syria.

A contribution to posterity by Syria-hater Bashar Assad and his Iranian advisers. The filthiest and most bestial enemy Syria has ever had in its long history. Filthier than any invader because it comes from inside.

Story: Another casualty of Syria’s war: Its cultural heritage

EXCERPT:

Martin said he had received many reports of Free Syrian Army fighters going directly to the towns’ most important sites to protect them from looters.

“On both sides there are intellectuals that know the importance of these sites. I have no doubt, knowing their mindset, that members of the Ministry of Culture are doing their best to protect them,” Martin said. “But we don’t know how much they can do. They are reliant on a regime that is bombing and destroying its heritage.”

Martin says, although offenses are clearly being committed on both sides, ultimately, responsibility lies with the Syrian government.

“The regime has signed an international agreement for the preservation of this historical heritage, yet they are sending their army to bomb and shell the population and hitting these sites along with it,” he said.

The result is heartbreaking for residents like 70-year-old Taher Mahmud Alsaid, who has watched his hometown of Maarat al-Numan and its historical mosque, souk and museum ravaged by daily shelling and heavy looting.

“I feel sad and excruciating pain for this country, for the destruction that Bashar has inflicted. It is a kind of destruction that neither this country nor other Islamic countries have seen. He has not left anything undestroyed in this country.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/130109/cultural-heritage-casualty-of-war

More painful details of shocking damage and theft of highly significant items that are part of the world’s precious heritage in Syria.

A contribution to posterity by Syria-hater Bashar Assad and his Iranian advisers. The filthiest and most destructive enemy Syria has ever had in its long history. Filthier than any invader because it comes from inside.

Story: Another casualty of Syria’s war: Its cultural heritage

EXCERPT:

Martin said he had received many reports of Free Syrian Army fighters going directly to the towns’ most important sites to protect them from looters.

“On both sides there are intellectuals that know the importance of these sites. I have no doubt, knowing their mindset, that members of the Ministry of Culture are doing their best to protect them,” Martin said. “But we don’t know how much they can do. They are reliant on a regime that is bombing and destroying its heritage.”

Martin says, although offenses are clearly being committed on both sides, ultimately, responsibility lies with the Syrian government.

“The regime has signed an international agreement for the preservation of this historical heritage, yet they are sending their army to bomb and shell the population and hitting these sites along with it,” he said.

The result is heartbreaking for residents like 70-year-old Taher Mahmud Alsaid, who has watched his hometown of Maarat al-Numan and its historical mosque, souk and museum ravaged by daily shelling and heavy looting.

“I feel sad and excruciating pain for this country, for the destruction that Bashar has inflicted. It is a kind of destruction that neither this country nor other Islamic countries have seen. He has not left anything undestroyed in this country.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/syria/130109/cultural-heritage-casualty-of-war

Iran FM in Cairo talks on Syria conflict
Egypt’s foreign minister holds talks with his Iranian counterpart to discuss a solution for the ongoing crisis in Syria
AFP , Thursday 10 Jan 2013

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi held talks on the Syrian crisis with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo Thursday, officials said, a day after he met briefly with peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Egypt’s foreign ministry said that Salehi and Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr “exchanged views on the Syrian crisis and means of finding a solution” to the conflict which the UN says has killed more than 60,000 people.

Salehi, whose country is a key ally of the Syrian regime, is also due to hold talks while he is in Cairo with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who has urged President Bashar al-Assad to step down and backed calls that he be tried for war crimes.

An Iranian diplomat told AFP that Salehi met Brahimi late Wednesday on his arrival in Cairo for the two-day visit.

No details were given on that meeting, which came just before Brahimi, the UN-Arab League special envoy for Syria, left Cairo for Geneva to discuss Syria’s 21-month conflict with Russian and US officials.

Iran is the only country to have come out in support of a three-step plan to end Syria’s civil war outlined Sunday by Assad in a rare speech in Damascus.

“Assad’s plan includes solutions which reject violence and terrorism and any foreign interference in the country, and outlines a comprehensive political process” Salehi said in a statement on Monday.

Interview with Syrian refugee Khaled al-Hariri, who died yesterday from the cold in Zaatari.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpf2h5JlDe0&feature=player_embedded#

Compare his situation with the rats nest of regime elite living it up comfortably in Tartus as if nothing is happening: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/world/middleeast/syrian-resort-town-is-stronghold-for-alawites.html?ref=syria)

Zoo,

From tired and frustrated to senile.. Adopting the party line?

I told you it was harsh criticism.. Nevertheless, I agree the guy is senile. Not because he described Assad for what he is, but because he apologized thereafter..

Why didn’t Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Turkey help him? Millions for weapons, nothing for refugees created for their fake revolution?

Today the army is decimating Salafist filth all over the nation. Praise God.

Bill I dare say SANA is far more reliable than the tweeps you’re so in love with. Too bad Twitter isn’t private. Everything is kinda “hanging out” in the wind ya know?

President Assad can afford to be generous. He’s winning.

==

TEHRAN, SANA Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, has expressed the Ministry’s appreciation of the Syrian government good offices for the release of the Iranian visitors kidnapped in Syria.

That came in a telephone call with Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem on Thursday.

Salehi and al-Moallem reviewed the latest developments in Syria and the aspects of the political program proposed by President Bashar al-Assad for resolving the crisis in Syria.

Minister al-Moallem expressed consent over the success of the measures for the release of the Iranian visitors and considered the measures in line with brotherly relations between two countries.

He also appreciated Iran’s support for Syria for developing the bilateral relations between the two countries.

==

Abdullah ‏@SyrianSmurf
Several reports saying that many of the freed prisoners are in bad health and at least 2 have passed away within hours of their release.

==

That’s a shame.

Gosh, I had no idea Erdogan was the S.ultan or that a S.ultanate was an elected position.

Better than being ‘elected’ a media advisor cum psychiatric political enforcer, but hey.

Why state one’s fears plainly and staightforwardly, when you can just grab that Fear Box and turn all the knobs way past exaggerated to Nutterzone.

Thanks, Observer, for your round up of the only media that matters, the Louis Al-Assad Sun King group. The histrionics are historic!

The top story at SANA today covers the Prime Minister’s yeoman efforts to get people to talk to each other. In this Breaking exclusive they reveal, ‘Government will hold meetings with political parties and community events and economic and social development in the framework of the implementation of the political program to resolve the crisis.’

There are details in the story, which runs to slightly over the Twitter character limit** — to the effect that meetings will be held urgently to develop mechanisims for a selection of committee members to work night and day on photo opportunities sitting around grim-faced in Palace rooms with Dr Louis the Sun and State and Future staring down on the festivities.

What is interesting about the SANA official photo style is that the meetings always show no one with the material of work in front of them. I suspect they do not do the work there; that comes beforehand, when the SANA story reaches them in their holding pens, telling them what they are going to pretend to do.

Here is the stunning picture of the Prime Minister and his cutouts rolling up their sleeves and getting to it. Big Brother on the wall behind them. Five old fat people sitting in a room. Syria is safe now, boys!

http://sana-syria.com/servers/gallery/201301/20130110-160654_h461189.jpg

This week the Vice President (male) of Syria has been refusing to come out of his cell. This is the reason he was nowhere to be seen at the Berlin Philharmonic Propaganda circus last week.

As always, do what the book tells you to do. If there is no Plan B, just repeat Plan A from the beginning. The government will get to its goal, one day.

http://sana-syria.com/ara/2/2013/01/10/461189.htm

In other exciting news for The Syrian Electronic Army’s activities, a week has gone by and their shocking expose continues to not appear on their web site.

Perhaps they could call in their Syrian Comment Kindergarten Korps for consultations. He sure seems to know what is going on in the world. Tomorrow he is going to find out that SANA_English has a Twitter feed, open to the world!

With 248 followers.

On Dasher, on Vixen, on Donner, on Revenire …

Top Stories Today:

Bush says Iraq has WMD, claims “millions will have to die because of our lies.”

I’ve heard the Syrian army is vacationing in Taftanaz and that DUCK SHOOTING is popular.

Doctoress Bouthaina Shaba’an was brought from her cell for the pictures of a Grim-Faced Sun King talking to a Grim-Faced Brahimi, a Grim-Faced Walid Mouallem, etcetera. Bouthaina stared at the floor, looking grimmer than anyone in the room.

At the farther chair from the Sun King, an odd chap with a comb-over was staring into the distance as everyone but he and Doctoressa looked intently at the Envoy and the Bab.

They exchanged views, ‘frankly.’

Then Shara’a and Shaba’an were taken back to their cells. When they promise not to be bad anymore, they will get a ticket to the Opera.

Meanwhile, their good friend Maqdissi chats away with the other missing and presumed, in Bakkourland.

The Prime Minister stressed on the role of national parties in enriching political life and the practice of democracy and communication and interaction with the citizens and support the reform process and contribute to the protection of vital installations, economic and service facilities.

For his part, Secretary-General presented to the Solidarity Party Arab Democratic and members of the Bureau’s activities Party organizational and user’s posts political and public addition to the presentation aspects of needs service and basic necessities for citizens confirming party support for the political program to resolve the crisis which was launched by President Assad and to support national solution and national reconciliation and their emphasis on resolving the current crisis through dialogue and roads peaceful and democratic.

Yeah baby!

Bill if you really want to have some fun make a chart of all the times the US, Israel, etc. said Assad had only a few weeks left (they started saying this maybe 1 1/2 years ago). I promise howling laughter.

Or compile a list of what Bush Administration officials said about Iraqi WMD and stick it next to one of Obama’s hapless men’s statements on Syrian chemical weapons.

Or, if you’re daring and don’t mind offending the tweeps you worship from afar, post stories of “rebels” saying that SAA shelling had murdered the Iranian hostages. I can point you to the tweeps who said this if you are drawing a blank because, umm you know, the shabiha watch all.

LOL

For extra fun Bill take a look at your own Canadian media discuss foreign affairs re: Syria, Iran, China, Russia and the other BRICS nations.

Being a student of SANA you know the Western press always distorts what Assad says and that the West’s press it isn’t so much news but opinion. Very few media sources in the West bothered to print Assad’s speeches – odd considering the West might go to war against Syria. They would not want to tell citizens the truth would they? Nah. It’s all very democratic you see?

Or Bill tell the “Syrian” tweeps you fawn over how elections work in the West. Tell them it is the financial powers, as in oligarchy, that control the elections. This kind of freedom, and free press, can be imported into Syria – via NATO bombs ala Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan. “One man, one vote” is nice to tell the kids but that isn’t how it works in the real world: Bombs, R2P “humanitarian” intervention, coups installing dictators, backing existing dictators, etc. is the reality.

Bill tell your friends that the West doesn’t care if Syrians live or die as long as the West can change – via “democratic” war – the geopolitical situation re: Syria-Iran-Hezbollah. Syrian lives mean nothing to Obama or Hague. In fact, the more Syrians that are killed in a meat grinder war the better.

Poor Bill. Left at the altar years ago time has not been kind.

Bill I can tell you’re a student of history. Tell the tweeps you’re enamored with about the creation of Al-Qaeda to fight the godless commies in Afghanistan. You remember Reagan right? When you were blowing your mind on drugs in some mosh pit in Vancouver singing about anarchy the Reagan Administration was arming Al-Qaeda to fight the USSR. Heck, they did a similar thing in Nicaragua Bill – you remember the Contras right? Ollie North and all that cocaine sold to arm the terrorists. Gee, could anyone be doing the same thing with Afghan opium today? Golly gee Bill but most of the world’s heroin – you know the Big H / Horse / the stuff that Canadian kids OD on – comes from guess where Bill? Do you think terrorists pay for guns with drug money Bill? Ask Amal Hanano or is she having a pity party about some war that the West started in Syria?

Is that all Tin Foil Hat stuff Bill? You mean Bush and Co. didn’t lie about Iraqi WMD and go to war based on those lies? That is a delusion I am having?

Bill put away the Clash 45s and remember Weller said he’d never reform the Jam. Move on. Grow up.

cartoon

http://sphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/524563_491329250910347_1653782652_n.jpg

Can’t wait to hear all the apes say Taftanaz is still in the government’s hands. C’mom Salafist monkeys – dance for a banana from Erdogan!

The opposition rejected Ibrahimi from the start as “bias”, the Syrian government gave him a chance but now the Syrian government agrees with the opposition: The guy is ‘bias’ and hopeless.

Bye Bye Piggy, Bye Bye Ibrahimi….

Syria accuses UN peace envoy of bias
ALBERT AJI and BARBARA SURK | Associated Press

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-accuses-un-peace-envoy-bias-151133766.html

#127 Tara

Thanks Tara for agreeing. From the start the guy kept whining how difficult the task was and when he finally talked, it was so dull and unimaginative and above all “a slip of the tongue”… that he apologize for.
After Kofi Anan, another UN disaster…

As the West does not want to help, the FSA seems to be advertising worldwide for Sunni Jihadists to come to Syria to fight against the “heretics”: Turkey offers full lodging pension and Qatar pays the salary.

4 held in Britain over Syria terrorism
2013-01-10 20:09

http://www.news24.com/World/News/4-held-in-Britain-over-Syria-terrorism-20130110

London – British police have arrested four men as part of an investigation into travel to Syria in support of terrorist activity, Scotland Yard said on Thursday.

One of the men was detained while trying to take a flight from London’s Gatwick airport on Wednesday, while the others were arrested at addresses in east London on Thursday, it said in a statement.

Zoozoo
What will happen if Brahimi quit? his departure means there is no more political solution,Assad is using Brahimi to delay the end of his regime, he will be the loser if Brahimi quit.

Zoo

The UN needs to get themselves a tough young woman instead of too “political” older men to handle the situation. That is my opinion.

The UN won’t do a thing except talk; Russia and China will veto any Security Council resolution. Let the old men talk over coffee with the BBC. It amuses us.

Here’s a better list than the released rat one – these are the dead rats:

DAMASCUS

The Syrian Army is invincible….as the population of rodents learned yesterday in Darayya where mop-up operations are proceeding apace. At the Shari’ah School, all 30 rodents were killed in a firefight with the SAA. The names of the killers are as follows:

Ahmad Darwish (sniper and rat leader)
Zuheir Al-Sheikh
Ali Dallal
Mahmoud Al-Dummarani (already reported yesterday)
Abdel-Karim Al-Agha
Hamdi Yildiz (Turk)
Mahmoud Alaa Zakariyya
Mabrouk Ahmad Al-Atiq
Ali Tariq Istawani
Muhammad Za’farani (aka Abu Iblis)
Khalil Muhammad Abu-Durra
Samir Al-Qa’id

Of interest is the dismantling of one IED with 150 kgs of explosives at the Al-Basil Roundabout near the mosque mentioned below.

The list is too long to set out for the readers. If I have time later, I will transcribe the rest of it.

At the Khalid Ibn Al-Walid Mosque, SAA sappers dismantled over 15 IEDs and explosive devices being prepared for the murder of civilians. In a firefight at the mosque, the following ape excrement was brushed into oblivion:

Iqbal Rahman Hilal (Pakistani)
Ali Vazir Assadullah (Pakistani)
Aleem Abdullah Mudhaffar (Pakistani)
Walid Al-Rahi (Libyan)
Rahil Ahmad (Jordanian)
Mahmoud Al-Deek
Mulamma’ Al-Jubeili
Wasim Al-Farran
Ahmad Al-Khalili
Samer Tayyara

At Al-Hujjeira and Dhiyabiyyeh, SAA annihilated 23 rodents:

Ahmad Khalil
Jassem Sabrouji
Abbas Al-Khawli
Kheireddine Ahmad Attar
Ghulam Safi (Afghan)

The SAA destroyed 2 mortars equipped with heavy machine guns.

If I have time, I will complete the list later. Thanks, Monzer.

At Madaya, the SAA has 15 confirmed rat-sightings and 15 confirmed rat killings:

Khalid Abdel-Hadi Aqasha (rat leader)
Ma’moun Antar
Sadreddine Ali Muhammad
Saleh Mukattibi
Ra’id Abdel-Karim Al-Halbouni

Once again, I will try to finish the list later.

ALEPPO

In Aleppo, a great day for hunting with over 116 rats exterminated. This time, at Khan Al-Asal, Khan Touman, Zeitan and Al-Bawwabiyya, most of the scabrous slime was from the FSA or Fake Syrian Army. I have a list of 60 names with more coming in. Of some interest is the carcass of a deserter lieutenant who is being identified from blood samples as he was not carrying papers. Captured rodents called him “Al-Mulazim Dawood”.

At Qabban Al-Za’im east of the Nayrab Bridge, 5 rats killed along with their two flatbeds equipped with machinge guns. The five pests were named:

Mehmet Gedik (Turk)
Jalil Mahmoud Adlouni
Muhammad Ramadan Adasi
Mukhtar Mallah
Mahmoud Sami Afioumy

At Al-Safira Bridge, the SAA destroyed a mortar along with its rockets.

At Khan Al-Asal, we can confirm the deaths of 16 rodents killed at the S.A.D.C.O.P. Company warehouse where the now deceased rat-thieves were caught trying to steal oil derivative products for resale in Turkey. The SAA destroyed all 7 flatbeds with their ubiquitous machine guns. Of the 16 carcasses, the following have been identified from papers:

Majid Sabri
Abbas Khalid Bayram
Abdelnabi Omar Haci (Turk)
Ali Mousa Hamdoon (UAE)
Ahmad Kheir Medwari
Labib Mahmoud Al-Shabi

HOMS

Al-Qusair in the Homs countryside saw a spectacular ambush set for the pests while they drove a Japanese car down the road heading east to the main city. The car was struck by a SAA RPG and vaporized. The rats have not been identified due to the nature of the destruction.

At Al-Haydariyya, 6 piles of excrement were brushed away. They are:

Atef Muhammad Ghallab
Ali Samhouri
Abdel-Rahman Abu-al-Hassan
Muhammad Ahmad Mahamil
Jamil Ahmad Tuqtuq (Lebanese)
Awad Ali Safwani

At Teldo, the HARMOUSH family added to its long list of failures with the following trash:

Ubaida Harmoush
Qassem Razzouq
Abdel-Salaam Al-Uksh
Majed Faour
Khalid Sabsabi

رئيس الائتلاف الوطني أحمد معـاذ الخطيـب: النظـام رفـض المفاوضـات علـى اطـلاق سـراح 200 ضابـط علـوي موجوديـن أسـرى لـدى الجيـش الحـر

الخميس 10\1\2013

غرام الذهب عيار 21
4250 ليرة

الدولار
مبيع:94
شراء:92

اليورو
مبيع:124
شراء:120
Iranian:50Syrian
Shabiha:dirt

Reve,

You sure you are not in a manic phase of manic-depression disorder? You certainly behave as such.

144. majie

After Bashar’s speech everybody accused him of wanting the violence to continue while “supposedly” the international community wants a political transition “under its own conditions”.

Well, the ball is now with the international community to find a way to get to a ‘political’ solution. Let them kick out Ibrahimi, bring another idle UN diplomat, it is all up to them now.

It’s now obvious the AL and EU sanctions are hitting the poor Syrians who are dying of hunger and cold because the mazut factories and oil wells have been ‘liberated’ by the “angels” FSA and trucks with flour have no fuel to reach the bakeries.
The Syrian Red Crescent is overstretched. Qatar has been paying billions to kill Syrians, can’t they save a few millions to feed their widows and chidren?

Where is the SOC, SNC CCNROF, etc…? Aren’t they supposed to be the ‘Sole Representatives of the Syrian people”.
All they do is write letters to UN full of mistakes and whine while they are planning the next FOS meeting on the italian riviera?

Tara

Maybe you are right, but no young person would dare would take that job, it’s poisonous and it can destroy a young person’s career. This is why Banki picked retired diplomats almost senile.

The conclusion I have reached is that no foreign entity can ever help the Syrians, they are far too complicated people. A Syrian is the only who can understand another Syrian. They have to find a solution by themselves. This is why a start of dialog, even imperfect and bitter is the only solution.

98. AIGsaid: ….

AIG, the premise of your remarks is just wrong. The government has made previous exchanges of prisoners for captured Syrian soldiers. For example see: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/22/159820375/despite-bitter-fighting-a-prisoner-swap-in-syria

Exactly: the sanctions of Obama and his Saudi-loving friends are killing Syrians. Maybe Obama and Hague need to step down. Replace them with someone Americans and British want. Erdogan has killed way more Syrians than Assad ever dreamt of.

Long Live Al Nusra the angels and savior of the Syrian revolution!
Long Live the Islamic Emirate of Taftanaz.

http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-seize-parts-strategic-air-202437195.html

Abdul-Rahman, who relies on a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said the rebels involved in the attack on Taftanaz were Islamic militants. He said estimated their number to be about 700 and said they included members of Jabhat al-Nusra, affiliated with al-Qaida, and groups with a similar Islamic ideology.

Members of al-Nusra, which the U.S. has branded a terrorist organization, have been among the most effective fighters in the rebels’ battle to oust Assad.

103. Hopeful

Hijab is a jelly fish… No charisma, no nerves.

JNA,

Are there or are there not Syrian army personnel held by the FSA that were not freed in this deal? Which means Iranian prisoners are more important to Assad than Syrian ones. Case closed.

Zoozoo
there will not be anyone to mediate political solution,after Brahimi, I am sure you will not accept Hilary Clinton.

Taftanaz airport is about to be completely taken by FSA, this proved you wrong again, all your predictions failed,FSA is still powerful,and Assad is getting more delusional, and you are Qiqi qiqi a lot

Zoo,

Agree. We are very complicated people with historical baggage. Probably difficult to be understood even by an Arab. Lots of subtleties and intricacies and now the Nusra guys that will be difficult to handle. I can’t think of any known name that can serve as a mediator….and no Syrian expat will be acceptable to the regime as he or she will be immediately disqualified as a Western puppet.

Are we sliding into Abyss?

Now that war is the real “solution” wanted by the opposition, by Qatar, France and the UK and hypocritically by the US, the Syrian army is flexing its muscles against the terrorists in Northern Syria. Nato to act as a on-site reporter.

Syria fires ballistic missile at rebels, Nato says
10 January 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20970866

Syrian military has fired a ballistic missile towards cities in the north, Nato says, making it the third such launch in recent days.

The BBC understands that the missiles were unguided and were fired in the direction of Aleppo and Idlib.

Nato is currently deploying Patriot anti-missile batteries along Turkey’s border with Syria.

In another development, Syria has denounced UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as “flagrantly biased”.

Aref Dalila ( imprisoned by the regime, excluded by thawrajiyeh ):
 استبعد د.عارف دليلة دخول سورية في حرب أهلية، مشيراً الى أن ،هذا السيناريو يفتقر الى الكثير من المقومات والأسباب البنيوية، فالصراع في جوهره سياسي، وإن دخلت عليه عناصر كثيرة مختلفة ومعقدة،، لافتاً الى أن ،ما يحدث صراع سياسي، والحرب الأهلية بين الجماعات غير متوافرة على أرض الواقع،. 
ورأى دليلة في تصريحات صحافية أن لا إمكان لإقامة حكم علوي على الساحل السوري ،حتى في الضرورات القصوى، وذلك إنطلاقاً من الجواب حول عدم توافر مقومات الحرب الأهلية،، مضيفاً: ،لا مبرر من الناحية المبدئية للحديث عن مثل هذا الاحتمال، وهناك موانع قوية جداً في التركيبة السكانية بسبب التمازج الاجتماعي – المناطقي، وسورية غير قابلة للتقسيم، وأي أفكار من هذا النوع ستفشل لو كان أحد يفكر بمثل ذلك،.
ورداً على تقارير أشارت الى احتمال انسحاب النظام السوري باتجاه المناطق ذات الغالبية العلوية، أكد أن ،بعض الجماعات تعود الى أماكنها الأولى، ولا يمكن التمركز في أي منطقة وإغلاقها، فكل سورية مفتوحة وقد تكون الظروف الحالية فرضت بعض القيود والحواجز ولكنها تبقى حالة إستثنائية،.
Assad and Librahimi had a tense meeting last week, relations between the two are likely to get worse after Assad’s speech and Librahimi’s statement to BBC. Librahimi’s major sin according to the regime is trying to find a solution that does not keep Assad in power, there are rumors,already, about Librahimi’s resignation.

#157 Tara

Turkey that shares a lot of the psychological complexity with Syrians would have been the best mediator, but they took side too hastily.
Now I don’t see any solution except one emerging out of exhaustion of one side or the other, but that could take years and lots of sufferings.

#159 Ghufran

Ibrahimi is burnt, he must go.

JNA,

Could you imagine a deal in which Israel agreed to free prisoners and not have its own freed, but leave them in captivity and accept that some other nationals be freed? Only vassal states makes such deals.

Turkey involved in looting northern factories, Syria claims

DAMASCUS – Agence France-Presse
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-involved-in-looting-northern-factories-syria-claims.aspx?pageID=238&nID=38782&NewsCatID=352

Syria on Thursday accused neighbouring Turkey of involvement in looting factories in the industrial city of Aleppo, in letters sent to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that also urged swift action.

“Some 1,000 factories in the city of Aleppo have been plundered, and their stolen goods transferred to Turkey with the full knowledge and facilitation of the Turkish government,” the foreign ministry said in the letters.

“It is an illegal act of aggression that amounts to piracy. It is an act of aggression against the Syrian people’s livelihood,” the ministry added.

Russia sent to Syria, the Black Sea Fleet amphibious ship with commandos on board
@RT_russian

162-
Do you think that your country behave possible conceivable for sane? Usually Israel’s behavior be within a non-reasonable! About the exchange some officers from one sect and not from others, it seems blackmail!

JN(Jabhet al Nusra) invited US to secure Chemical weapons site in Sfeirah Aleppo province, they told US either you take it or we will take it after we clean Taftanaz and Mennagh airport.
Now it is up to US to decide. it seems JN agreed for US troops to enter from Turkey to do the job.
Atropin or pralidoxime injections will be available to the JN soldiers.

It definitely seems like the years of fighting in Iraq did nothing to weaken the potential numbers and strength of hardline Islamist guerrillas in the region.

taking over chemical weapons centers would be by obtaining Agent 15 or TW 1000,to paralyze Assad thugs, and with pralidoxime injections to protect JN soldiers

Told you terrorist-supporting swine that the people of Aleppo hated you. If there was a vote today for president Assad would probably win 70% of the votes cast.

Insight: Aleppo misery eats at Syrian rebel suppor
By Yara Bayoumy

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) – At a crowded market stall in Syria, a middle-aged couple, well dressed, shuffle over to press a folded note, furtively, into the hand of a foreign reporter.

It is the kind of silent cry for help against a reign of fear that has been familiar to journalists visiting Syria over the past two years. Only this is not the Damascus of President Bashar al-Assad but rebel-held Aleppo; the note laments misrule under the revolution and hopes Assad can defeat its “terrorism”.

“We used to live in peace and security until this malicious revolution reached us and the Free Syrian Army started taking bread by force,” the unidentified couple wrote. “We ask God to help the regime fight the Free Syrian Army and terrorism – we are with the sovereignty of President Bashar al-Assad forever.”

While they might not be all they seemed – agents of Assad’s beleaguered security apparatus want to blacken the rebels’ name – their sentiments are far from rare in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and once vibrant hub of trade and industry, whose diverse urban communities now face hardship and chaos at the hands of motley bands of fighters recruited from surrounding rural areas.

As government forces fight on in parts of Aleppo, in large areas that have been under rebel control for six months or more complaints are getting louder about indiscipline among the fighters, looting and a general lack of security and necessities like running water, bread and electricity in districts that have been pounded by tanks and hit by Assad’s air force.

Recognizing that mistrust, rebel units have set up command and policing structures they see forming a basis of institutions which might one day run the whole country and which, meanwhile, they hope can show Arab and Western supporters that they have the organization to handle aid in the form of money and weapons.

For those who fear the worst for Syria now that the revolt has unleashed long suppressed ethnic and sectarian rivalries, however, evidence in Aleppo that these new institutions have had little practical impact on often rival rebel groups is ominous.

And all the while relations grow testier between the rebels and Aleppines, for whom many fighters harbor some disdain after the urbanites’ failed to rise up on their own against Assad. Continued… read on
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE9070VV20130108

@ Tara and Zoo

Yes, the country is sliding into the abyss. I think it’s already there.

@ Zoo

What exactly is wrong with the looting of the factories at this stage? The factories are not being used, the owners have fled, and the country is no longer a country. If the regime is allowed to cannibalize the country to survive, why can’t the FSA do it too?

As I’ve said, what comes around, goes around. A concept that regime supporters have forgotten.

Any of you keyboard warriors feeling lucky? They need you in Taftanaz… offer yourselves to the “revolution” supported by Israel against an Arab nation. Traitors always get what is coming to them.

==

Syria 24 English

Collaborators who helped terrorists penetrate the perimeter of the air port have been executed immediately on the site of the air base.

The bodies of around 150 terrorists have been gathered and burnt to keep our soldiers warm, in addition the bodies of the traitors were stripped of the uniform they dishonoured and thrown into the fire.

Let this be a lesson for all those who want to betray their people, you will burn alongside these foreign terrorists.

Also, what the Aleppines think doesn’t really matter. They wanted to sit out the war and continue making money, which is why many supported the regime. Now they’re getting their just deserts.

The fighters come from the countryside. They come from the refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. They come from the poor. Those people are the people that matter for the FSA. And that’s why the regime will lose, because their potential manpower is inexhaustible.

If the regime is still around 10 years from now, the children today in the refugee camps will grow up to pick up guns to fight the regime, as their fathers have. It’s like Afghanistan all over again.

The regime can hold on for a year, two years, maybe even five years. But can they hold on forever? Because the FSA will not stop. This is a fight to the death.

Marigoldran go to your job. You’re nothing but a frustrated kid sitting on a forum that’s been wrong since day one.

Without NATO the FSA can’t win a parking lot.

We’ll see who is right in the end, troll.

What comes around, goes around.

AIG #162

It has always been the case that the Assad clan and their associates have a contempt for and indifference to the people of Syria and regard the mass of them as irrelevant and dispensible.

Add this to the situation described by core defectors where Iranian advisers are now present in swarms at Assad HQ and running every aspect of Syrian affairs, and the hostage swap is no surprise.

The regime is an Iranian vassal state.

They don’t care about Syria. They only care about themselves and Iran.

#166 Majie

Top U.S. General Says Stopping a Syrian Chemical Attack Is ‘Almost Unachievable’

By Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman
01.10.13
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/syria-chem-military/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29

If Syrian dictator Bashar Assad decides to use his chemical weapons, there won’t be a thing the U.S. military can do to stop him, America’s top military officer conceded on Thursday. Nor will the U.S. step into a “hostile” atmosphere, with or without Assad, to keep those chemicals under control.

There is no doubt this photo of a displaced Syrian child sleeping on cold hard snow will have Bashar Assad high fiving his Iranian advisers.

They will think it reinforces the message to Syrians that “Bashar means business” with collective punishment.

http://twitter.com/rallaf/status/289284432429465600/photo/1

Protection of minorities must take priority in Syria transition
Report from Amnesty

Published on 10 Jan 2013
http://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/protection-minorities-must-take-priority-syria-transition

Any future transitional government in Syria should make the protection of minority groups its top priority, Amnesty International said today as an international conference in the UK planning for the Syrian government’s possible collapse drew to a close.

Another fake photo for the fake revolution. No one would let their kid sleep on frozen snow. What a joke. The Salafist’s are so stupid.

LOL can’t believe anyone would believe that is a real picture.

Will the West allow Al Qaeeda to overrun a Syrian air base
or will they send drones to destroy it?

Al Qaida-linked Nusra rebels about to overrun Syrian air base

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/01/10/179548/al-qaida-linked-nusra-rebels-about.html#storylink=cpy

BEIRUT — A Syrian rebel group that the United States has labeled an affiliate of al Qaida in Iraq appeared Thursday to be on the verge of overrunning a government air base that’s used to launch helicopter strikes against rebel-held areas in Syria’s north.

According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and video of the fighting posted on the Internet, the offensive at Taftanaz, an air base near the road that links the Syrian cities of Idlib and Aleppo, was being led by the Nusra Front, which the State Department designated a terrorist organization last month.

Ahrar al Sham, another rebel group that, like Nusra, has called for establishing an Islamic state in Syria, is participating in the offensive, according to its Internet postings.

Talking about ‘collective punishment’

The destruction of Aleppo, the looting and destruction of the factories are the collective punishment inflicted by the armed rebels on the population of Aleppo for their refusal to support the revolution.

Marigoldran you are one of the craziest sectarian nuts I’ve ever run across. You tell lies as if they were water for a thirsty man.

Stealing factories is what pigs do. Don’t you care about the people of Aleppo? Weren’t they free not to join your fake revolution? I guess not.

Good news is they hate the FSA and want Assad. The longer the FSA stays in Aleppo the more the people there will hate them.

I don’t believe you’re even Syrian Marigoldran. No Syrian says “yeah steal our factories and send them to Turkey.”

Sick.

Now the man might not have been demented after all..  why did he not said tat from the beginning?  That Assad would not be a member of the transitional government!  Why do they all say this after they are out of commission

• The international envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said that Bashar al-Assad could have no place in a transitional government to end civil war, the closest he has come to calling directly for the embattled president to quit. A peace plan agreed by major powers in Geneva last year envisages an interim administration. “Surely he would not be a member of that government,” Brahimi told Reuters in an interview in Cairo. Brahimi’s camp previously urged the opposition to ‘come to terms’ with the idea that Assad would stay in post in some role until 2014. But in his interview he said: “The solution shouldn’t wait until 2014. It should be in 2013.”

,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/jan/10/syria-brahimi-no-place-for-assad-live#block-50ee8200b5793dbd48813d62

Read last paragraph of Nuland’s statement.  If this is not a slap on the face of all Allawi supporters, what is?  Do you guys get it.  Your lives are collectively not worth a shoes in Asma’s collection.  Continue your disgusting worship till your last man.  

• The US insisted that most of the freed Iranians were members of the the elite Revolutionary Guard and that the swap revealed the Assad regime’s priorities. State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:

We note that most of the Iranians who had been captive – held captive are members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, just another example of how Iran continues to provide guidance, expertise, personnel, technical capabilities to the Syrian regime.

Perhaps more interestingly, the regime chose to swap people that it was holding not for Syrian citizens primarily, not for Alawi primarily, but instead for Iranians, further indicating how much they value the life of their own citizens versus the surrogates who are propping them up.

Poor Tara.

Nuland tries to stir the sectarian pot. Yawn.

Another bolt out of the blue that is true. Syrian is NOT an Alawite regime but a Syrian nation.

The Endgame in Syria: Strategic Stage in the Pentagon’s Covert War on Iran
http://www.voltairenet.org/article177107.html

“These foreign-sponsored opposition figures have also served to validate, in one way or another, the broader narratives that claim Sunnis and Shiites hate one another. In synchronization the mainstream media in the countries working for regime change in Damascus, such as the US and France, have consistently advertized that the regime in Syria is an Alawite regime that is allied to Iran, because the Alawites are an offshoot of Shiism. This too is untrue, because Syria and Iran do not share a common ideology; both countries are aligned, because of a common threat and shared political and strategic objectives. Nor is Syria run by an Alawite regime; the government’s composure reflects Syrian society’s ethnic and religious diversity.

“Israel’s Stake in Syria

“Syria is all about Iran for Israel. As if Tel Aviv has nothing to do whatsoever with the events inside Syria, Israeli commentators and analysts are now publicly insisting that Israel needs to deal with Iran by intervening inside Syria. Israel’s involvement in Syria, alongside the US and NATO, crystallized in 2012. It was clear that Israel was working in a conglomerate comprised of the US, Britain, France, Turkey, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon’s minority March 14 Alliance, and the NATO-supported usurpers that have taken over and wrecked the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.”

Nauland is just calling things by their names. The only redemption I see for the Alawis is if one of them assassinated Batta and get Syria’ rid out off this evil.

Tara you are so wrapped up in your stupid “hate Batta” games that you can’t see beyond the end of your nose. I’ve watched you and noticed how you post things gleefully as if they meant anything at all. It is just your fantasies and wishes you are posting. You want Assad dead. You want Asma’s shoes. You want this and want that. Go get a pizza.

Taftanaz air base is now out of commission.  Batta no longer can use it to launch air strikes against the children of Syria.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/jan/10/syria-brahimi-no-place-for-assad-live#block-50ee86b2b5793dbd48813d66

9.15am GMT Taftanaz air base
Syrian jets have bombed Idlib’s Taftanaz air base after it was stormed by Islamist rebels on Wednesday, according to an update from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The jihadi Ahrar al-Sham brigade posted footage showing a rebel-controlled tank forcing its way into the compound of the base.

 
If today’s shelling is confirmed, the development follows a familiar pattern, according to Washington-based Syria analyst Asher Berman.

Speaking to the Guardian on Wednesday, he said: “The pattern in the past, with this sort of thing, is that once the rebels seize a position like this, the regime will just bomb it from planes based in other air bases, and artillery. So they probably will not be able to hold it. The real value is just taking it out of commission.”

Today, activists claimed that the town of Taftanaz was also hit by barrel bombs, dropped by helicopter.
…..

One
the only tears some will shed is on the death of their deity the God incarnate and the “door” to the Mahdi.
Two
Now they want AI to come to the rescue of the minorities and the transition government firs job is to secure the minorities. Well I thought the glorious brave SAA soldiers were defeating the rebels right and left.
Three
Will drones come to destroy the Islamists as they are overrunning the airbases. Wow now we want US drones in Syria but wait I thought we had the most sophisticated Russian made AA guns and missiles the world has ever seen. So how can drones fly over the airbases.
Four
The drones will come to the rescue so for all practical purposes NATO is now about to intervene in Syria against Islamist terrorists. Why not give coordinated points to the SAA and its missiles to destroy the rebels that way? Or is it that the missiles are inaccurate or that the SAA is made up of thugs and nothing more than thugs?
Five
The Bab cannot be a part of the next government, but wait I thought he had access to the Mahdi and that he is the great protector of the minorities and that he is the prophecy incarnate and the the beginning of the new dawn of the Messiah.

Justice for Hamza is on the way Eat your Heart Out One Shabih at a time.

Update: Full translation of Shaykh Kharsa’s article on the FSA: http://freehalab.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/shaykh-kharsa-on-the-free-syrian-army/

Taftanaz is under the control of the Syrian Arab Army. You’re just spreading terrorist propaganda Tara.

Bankrupted Egypt’s rewarded with $2 bln for opting for a Moslem Brotherhood regime.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/10/egypt-economy-qatar-idUSL5E9CA7TU20130110

Egypt c.bank official says $2 bln Qatari loan arrived in Dec

CAIRO | Thu Jan 10, 2013 7:50am EST

Jan 10 (Reuters) – The sub-governor of Egypt’s central bank said on Thursday that $2 billion in new funds that Qatar announced this week it pledged to Cairo had arrived at the bank in December.

When asked by email if the deposit arrived in January or December, Nidal Assar, the bank’s sub-governor for investment and foreign relations, replied: “December”.

Revenire is a troll.

He is stupid and he is an idiot. Normally those two words are redundant, but in his case they are not. He is a stupid idiot!

Repeat.

Don’t bother arguing with the troll over Syria. Like the regime, he cannot be reasoned with. Instead just insult him.

Ahrar al Sham stormed Taftanaz air base, captured 20 helicopters and 13 soldiers.  The regime then bombarded the base.  The base is now out of commission.

—–
Taftanaz air base
Islamist rebels have captured 20 helicopters, 13 soldiers and an arms depot as part of the raid on Taftanaz air base, according to the latest update from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

But government forces have continued to bombard the base and there have been more violent clashes, it said.

The opposition Shaam news network also said jets had attacked the base after rebels took control.

More video from activists appear to confirm the reports.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2013/jan/10/syria-brahimi-no-place-for-assad-live#block-50eec6f395cb42427dba95a7

#190 Tara

The article says it well: The rebels can’t hold anything, their strategy is attrition: Hit, Claim Victory and Run.
And the media skipping the last part gives the impression that 70% of Syria is under rebels “control”, whatever they mean by control.

Unless they get serious weapons supplies, I doubt they’ll survive long with the constant scuds and bombings. They will probably all die, if they get no chance to flee to Turkey.
Hague promised to bring up the issues of weapons for the rebels with the EU… in March
In the meantime the area is being emptied from civilians

LOL @ “according to the latest update from the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.”

Captured 20 helicopters? Sure if you take some LSD the war is over and Erdogan is sitting in Damascus being fed grapes by his Syrian slaves.

The base is under army control Tara.

Zoo,

Holding it is not important. Who cares about an air base? What is important is taking the base out of commission so it is not used to launch attacks against rebels and civilians.

Despite the flurry of western media wishful thinking, Russia has not changed its stance which as been recently echoed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt:
“It’s only up to the Syrians to decide what leader and what government they want and this can only be done through a dialog between the government and the opposition”

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/11-Jan-2013/syria-accuses-brahimi-of-flagrant-bias
…
While, Russia urged world powers on Thursday to let Syrians decide their own future as it prepared for talks on the 22-month crisis with Washington’s pointman and the international peace envoy. A firm statement from Moscow said all talk – particularly that coming from Washington – on ways to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power was misguided because the ultimate choice rested with Syrians.

“Only the Syrians themselves can agree on the model of their country’s future development,” said the Moscow statement. “Russia’s position remains unchanged,” it added while urging “all foreign players to redouble their attempts to create conditions conducive for the start of dialogue.”

The comments were issued as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov went into a closed meeting with his Turkish counterpart Feridun Sinirlioglu. On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said world powers will have to step up their response to the conflict if the violence worsens, warning that all options were on the table. He reiterated that Britain would seek to amend the EU weapons embargo on Syria when it comes up for review on March 1 to allow them to arm rebels opposed to Assad’s regime.

In an update to the House of Commons, Hague said Britain was supporting Brahimi’s efforts to end the conflict, and revealed the envoy would visit London for talks later this month.

180. REVENIRE

Oh you are such a wicked wit!

So tell us, where else is that child able to sleep? On a bed or bench? On the floor of a building? In a field of green grass?

The huge refugee camps of flimsy tents and the heavy snow are all a hoax, are they? Filmed in Qatar movie sets, of course.

Your pants must be damp you’ve been laughing to yourself so much.

Zoo,

That’s called guerilla strategy. It worked in Vietnam and Afghanistan against armies much larger, advanced, and more cohesive than the regime’s army.

Tara

The Syrian army has many other air bases available for that and they don’t need an airport to send Scuds…

Unless they get news supplies of weapons and a no-fly zone, the rebels are doomed, and as it is Al Qaeeda doing the job for the rebels, I doubt they’ll get either.

It is just a matter of time before they get crushed for good. Lots of civilians will die too.

Right. How long have you been forecasting the doom of the rebels? How long has Assad been forecasting their defeat?

And yet they continue to grab more territory and ground with each passing month.

Reve,

I am seriously concerned about you. I am no longer mad with what you said. You are being relentless. You are in a manic phase. I hope you are eating and drinking. Speak to your psychiatrist. Lithium?

@205 You can post that such and such base has fallen 1000 times but it is just terrorist propaganda.

@201 Who would believe a child sleeps right ON frozen snow? That’s ridiculous. It is an obvious fake.

@204 I just started posting on this site so how long have I been saying the rebels are dead meat? Since I started posting here.

Revenire is an idiot. He is stupid and he needs to remember to take his medications.

TARA

Be careful, REVENIRE is getting very hung up on you and obsessed
with getting your attention.

He rarely gets to talk to a woman. In real life women avoid and ignore him or swat him away like a nasty insect.

It’s a big deal for him playing games on this forum. The biggest thing he’s currently got in his little life. You can tell that from the amount of time he puts into making ugly noise here.

Keep looking the other way and enjoy denying the obvious:
Islamist terrorist have no agenda for life, they are only programmed to kill and get killed:
قتل 81 شخصا على الاقل في هجوم انتحاري مزدوج مساء اليوم في مدينة كويتا جنوب غرب باكستان، وفق ما افادت الشرطة، وذلك بعد اعتداء في وقت سابق اسفر عن مقتل 11 شخصا في المدينة نفسها.
وقالت السلطات المحلية ان الهجوم المزدوج الذي اسفر ايضا عن اصابة 110 اشخاص استهدف ناديا مكتظا للبلياردو في حي ذي غالبية شيعية.
وقال الضابط في الشرطة مير زبير محمود: “إن الانتحاري الاول فجر نفسه داخل النادي وبعد عشر دقائق، وما ان وصل عناصر من الشرطة ومسعفون وصحافيون الى المكان، حتى قام انتحاري اخر بتفجير سيارته المفخخة امام المبنى”.
واضاف ان “الانفجارين ناجمان عن هجومين انتحاريين، الامر بات مؤكدا الان”.

THIS “REPORT” IS FROM NOVEMBER 3RD 2012, IT ALSO SAID TAFTANAZ WAS FALLING TO THE RATS EXCEPT IT DIDN’T – THE “REPORTERS” SHOULD JUST CHANGE THE DATES ON THE STORY AND USE IT AGAIN.

IF YOU ACTUALLY COUNT THIS WILL BE THE THIRD TIME (LOL) THE FSA HAS TAKEN THE BASE.

WHAT GARBAGE!

LOL

Syria Conflict: Rebels, Army Battle Over Taftanaz Airbase
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/03/syria-conflict-taftanaz_n_2068861.html
By BARBARA SURK 11/03/12 03:21 PM ET EDT

Inside Syria on Saturday for example, Islamic militants took part in a dawn assault on a strategic airbase in the north of the country. The attack, reported by activists, aimed to disrupt strikes by government warplanes and helicopters that are pounding rebel-held towns.

Anti-regime activist group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack on the Taftanaz air base continued into the evening, although Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said the fighting was over and government troops had repelled a “terrorist attack.” The government considers the rebels terrorists and pawns in a foreign plot to destroy the country.

Fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militant group made up of foreign jihadis, had joined in the assault, said the Observatory, which relies on reports from activists on the ground. Al-Nusra fighters, who are considered among the most experienced and disciplined among the forces fighting to topple Assad, have led attacks on other airbases in the north in recent months.

The Taftanaz base mainly houses military helicopters, near the main highway between the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo – where rebels and the military have been battling for control for months.

Online activist videos claim to show the battle, with rebels firing rockets and mortars, and smoke rising over buildings and an airstrip area. An activist speaking in the video identifies it as an attack by rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra on the base. The videos appear genuine and are consistent with other Associated Press reporting in the area.

Zoo,

How many air base does the regime have? 5? 10? Destroying them will sure affects its ability to launch air strikes. Air strikes and yes scud missiles are the only advantage the regime has over the rebels.

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He needs to take his meds.

Will Turkey be the biggest loser of the Arab Spring?
Will Sunni North Syria be the replacement of Kurdish North East Turkey?

This could be the birth of an independent Kurdish state

The great losers in the breakup of the Ottoman empire could be winners in the wake of Syria’s civil war and the Arab spring

By David Hirst
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/09/birth-kurdish-state-ottoman-syria-arab-spring

Would Turkey really support the creation of an independent Kurdish state? Why should it if a huge portion of Turkey’s territory and people would aspire to join in that new state? Or, are the game-makers planning to enhance Turkey with the addition of the Ottoman Mosul province?

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/a-kurdish-state.aspx?pageID=449&nID=38804&NewsCatID=425

What was true 46 years ago is still true today, we have nations ruled by thugs and controlled by foreign governments, the only difference today is the unwelcome addition of Islamist gangs:
أمتي هل لك بين الأمم منبر للسيف أو للقلم
أتلقاك وطرفي ….. مطرق خجلا من أمسك المنصرم
ويكاد الدمع يهمي عابثا ببقايا ….. كبرياء ….. الألم
أين دنياك التي أوحت إلى وتري كل يتيم النغم
كم تخطيت على أصدائه ملعب العز ومغنى الشمم
وتهاديت كأني ….. ساحب مئزري فوق جباه الأنجم
أمتي كم غصة دامية خنقت نجوى علاك في فمي
أي جرح في إبائي راعف فاته الآسي فلم يلتئم
ألاسرائيل ….. تعلو ….. راية في حمى المهد وظل الحرم !؟
كيف أغضيت على الذل ولم تنفضي عنك غبار التهم ؟
أوما كنت إذا البغي اعتدى موجة من لهب أو من دم !؟
كيف أقدمت وأحجمت ولم يشتف الثأر ولم تنتقمي ؟
اسمعي نوح الحزانى واطربي وانظري دمع اليتامى وابسمي
ودعي القادة في أهوائها تتفانى في خسيس المغنم
رب وامعتصماه انطلقت ملء أفواه البنات اليتم
لامست أسماعهم ….. لكنها لم تلامس نخوة المعتصم
أمتي كم صنم مجدته لم يكن يحمل طهر الصنم
لايلام الذئب في عدوانه إن يك الراعي عدوَّ الغنم
فاحبسي الشكوى فلولاك لما كان في الحكم عبيدُ الدرهم
أيها الجندي يا كبش الفدا يا شعاع الأمل المبتسم
ما عرفت البخل بالروح إذا طلبتها غصص المجد الظمي
بورك الجرح الذي تحمله شرفا تحت ظلال العلم

Mari

Looks at Revenire’s thumbs up. He gets more than you do.

“Air strikes and yes scud missiles are the only advantage the regime has over the rebels” and and air force and about 4000 tanks and artillery and an actual army and the support of Syrians.

Yeah no big deal. Just keep posting that the terrorists are winning and name the cities they control.

LOL

That’s because he makes guest accounts and gives himself thumbs up.

Which is kind of sad, if you think about it.

I wonder if you do the same.

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He should remember to take his medications.

#211 Tara

“Air strikes and scud missiles are the only advantage the regime has over the rebels.”

That’s the only advantages NATO had in Libya. They dicreetly killed thousands of civilians but they won their war without boots on the ground.
In Syria, it’s the Syrian army that has that ‘advantage’.

#217 Mari

I don’t think he needs that, he has his fans.
You mean I have guest accounts to give myself thumbs down?

I’m sure he has.

By the way, NATO’s missiles are guided. They can actually hit the target they’re aimed at. In contrast to Syrian missiles.

EDIT: I would not be surprised. You seem to be that type of person.

Marigoldran I don’t play clicking games to give myself fake likes on this forum. My fun is seeing FSA rats suffer and die on the battlefields of Syria. I have a little toy set of soldiers that I glued Salafist beards on and I get rip-roaring drunk and light them on fire laughing like a maniac. Then I make love to my wife. She looks at a portrait of Bashar – I look at one of Asma. It’s all good.

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He should remember to take his medications.

Zoo,

You never know. It may not be too long before the FSA or Al Nusra get their own missiles and attack regime barracks and the presidential compound. I am sure it is available in the black market.

Zoo

” Then I make love to my wife. She looks at a portrait of Bashar – I look at one of Asma. It’s all good”

I congratulate you for the friends you chose to defend on SC. I just hope they do not reflect your friends in real life.

Yup. See?

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He should remember to take his medications.

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He should remember to take his medications.

Yup. That’s hilarious.

LOL believe me it beats hearing an air base under control of the army has been taken 40 times.

It is like you terrorist supporters saying Assad will fall over and over. Do you think posting it here will help your fake revolution?

LOL this revolution is all about online – the virtual world. In the REAL world the SAA is killing the enemy.

Ok, so let’s continue:

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. He should remember to take his medications.

It is not just Hillary who will leave her post at the DOS, Robert Ford will probably be asked to depart too. Assad’s hardline position seems to be in anticipation of an upcoming meeting between John Kerry and Lavrov which will focus on solving the remaining issues especially the role of Assad, if any, in a future government. Ford is blamed for underestimating the influence of Islamists in Syria’s war and failing to stop indirect aid to those groups through Turkey. Rebels and the Syrian army are likely to push harder to gain as much ground before that meeting, allowing Assad to run for office in 2014 is probably not going to be a major hurdle since Russia may compromise on this issue,but there is still a disagreement about what capacity Assad will serve after a new government is formed, pushing Assad to resign is not on the table from the Russian side,that led some to suggest that anti Assad forces may indeed try to remove him physically, preserving the army and key government functions are now more important to Russia, and may be to Kerry,than keeping Assad as the head of the state.

Any negotiations that involve Assad is a non-starter. Russia can believe whatever it wants, but no one’s talking to him.

this is from an opposition site:
قالت مصادر موثوقة في الفاروق أن مجهولين أقدموا على اغتيال أحد مؤسسي كتائب الفاروق \”ثائر وقاص\” في بلدته سرمدا بريف إدلب.
و يتهم عدد من الثوار\”وقاص\” في اغتيال الدكتور \”فراس العبسي\” قائد كتائب المجاهدين التي قامت بتحرير معبر باب الهوى الحدودي منذ عدة أشهر.
يشار إلى أن \”وقاص\” يعتبر من أول من حمل السلاح في منطقة باب الهوى وفي الريف الإدلبي و هو أحد مؤسسي كتائب الفاروق، وشارك في معظم المعارك ضد قوات النظام.

Tara
there are 15 military airbase in Syria in addition to civil airports

Ghufran,

Ford is an idiot, and the US admin would love nothing more than to see what is transpiring in Syria to continue (As do the Russians).

A weak fragmented country that is engulfed in civil war is music to the ears of merchants of death. Last I checked the US and Russians are the largest exporters of military hardware (what the US and Russia exported collectively in 2010 supersedes that from ALL other exporting countries combined), how anyone can ever think that either one of these two countries ever had the fate of Syria in mind when dealing with this revolution is a damned fool.

The US will use Syria to send more billions towards Israel and further arm (sell more weapons) the Turks and Jordanians, while Russia will continue to boast how their defence systems “thwarted” big bad NATO from attacking one of their clients.

In the meantime Syrians are dying from killing each other, are dying from hunger and the elements. Syria’s children are going to grow up in a lost generation, all because a fool was shaken of his illegitimate thrown by a bunch of kids scribbling on a school wall.

Well yel3an ro7 illi khalaf hal ja7ish 2ou sa3toh…

hey guys, good to see y’all again. hope everyone is well.

123. zoo said: Erdogan’s quick way to solve the PKK problem.
Three PKK members killed in Paris attack

on the contrary, this was event was engineered by a third party intent on undermining this hopeful development (news from yesterday):

Turkey agrees on a peace plan with PKK

The Turkish government and jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan have agreed on a roadmap to end a three-decade-old insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, Turkish media reported Wednesday.

The deal was reached during a new round of talks between Ankara and Ocalan and aims to have the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) lay down arms in March, private news network NTV and Radikal newspaper reported.

An initial cessation of hostilities was to evolve into a fully-fledged ceasefire agreement over the following months, they said, without revealing their sources for the reported breakthrough.

3 guesses as to who benefits from disunity.

#235. SAMI

I am a great respecter of your posts and always watch for them.

But I can’t agree with your statement, “Ford is an idiot and the US admin would love nothing more than to see what is transpiring in Syria to continue”.

We are all angry and frustrated beyond bearing, but that assertion is not realistic.

You live in the west. You know there is a lot of sympathy and anxiety and anger against Assad and the ongoing situation in Syria. But you also know the complicated different levers that have to be pulled and pushed to get community approval on things like riskiy military action in Syria where they would be confronting Russia and Iran.

And for what it’s worth, the level of awareness and involvement and criticism of Assad by other countries from the start has exponentially exceeded attention to the devastating brutal civil conflicts in Algeria and Sri Lanka, for example.

The idea that Americans want foreign wars to continue for the benefit of their export arms trade is hard to concede. Any figures you have on this should include Europe but above all China, which is the biggest engine of growth in that industry.

(Though anything said criticizing America’s ongoing support of Israel I’ll agree with and add to).

My bleak fear is that the current exaggeration and hysteria about the role of Islamic extremists in Syria may inhibit western community support for reconstructing post-Assad Syria.

Roll on the day Syria has a legitimate government and Syrians have their lives back.

OMEN

Pleased to see you back! Good point about the Turkish killings in Paris.

Gee those were good times when a moderator spared us from extreme hate and suspended authors of such hate for some time.

here is a funny video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYvD2A6iC5k&feature=youtu.be

watch at 0:39

The girl is praising the eyedoctor, then suddenly she shouts: Abu Hafez,may your soul be damned!

Either she is like David in the cave with lions or she watched secretly the revolution songs…

Those in love with the Homsi ideom:

May be off topic a bit, but reminded me a lot what an israeli soldier told me when I wanted to enter Gaza: What do you want in that zoo?

http://www.google.de/imgres?um=1&hl=de&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1920&bih=987&tbm=isch&tbnid=q0lOoFgQdFPIqM:&imgrefurl=http://crybelovedcountry.com/2012/10/trimet-and-fear-of-free-speech/&docid=TCquXHbd-fVsXM&imgurl=http://crybelovedcountry.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Savage-and-civilized-man-ad.jpg&w=7500&h=2625&ei=TazvUNe9Fo_ItAbFsIGoCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=807&vpy=459&dur=155&hovh=133&hovw=380&tx=213&ty=82&sig=117382935046613368520&page=1&tbnh=98&tbnw=264&start=0&ndsp=54&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:0,i:154

SL

this could be from Kafranbel, but I am not so sure

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=473380436031402&set=a.186824541353661.34965.182806365088812&type=1&theater

Kurt Pelda, an swiss journalist has just come back from Syria. He has covered the war since 2 years, and in his last trip he was able to investigate an possible site of the regime in which chemical warheads are produced.

He finds out from former employees that the majority of buildings and the processing of the chemicals is done underground, in an facility 20 km south of Aleppo. The employees said that Iranian scientists are constantly working there, building tunnels. Pelda claims that the facility is now surrounded by rebel groups, they arent part of the FSA, he said that they are islamic rebels, and that neither the vison that Assad may have chemicals at his disposal nor those rebels seems allright.

http://www.srf.ch/player/tv/rundschau/video/giftgas-in-syrien?id=ae21fdab-32fb-4cc3-9803-e9879773d1b6

Snow reminded us how beautiful #Syria is, because #Assad ugliness made us forget.

https://twitter.com/RanaKabbani54/status/289602327944519680

New statements from the Syrian Coalition.

The following tweets are by journalist Hassan Hassan:

 Release: Representatives of the Syrian Coalition took part in a conference hosted by the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 9-10

 The following tweets are from a press release just sent by Syria National Coalition. Very important.

 The Syrian Coalition presented in London a draft vision for a transitional period based on a controlled gradual transition of power.

 The Syrian Coalition’s plan includes: ensuring that governmental institutions continue working in full function, troops withdrawal to bases.

 The Syrian National Coalition also vowed: collection of weapons from civilians, and mobilizing national efforts towards rebuilding Syria.

 This is a press release from the National Coalition. Important read: http://goo.gl/MXz75

https://twitter.com/hhassan140:

Zaidoun, a Syrian activist, tells Anderson Cooper what he witnessed inside a prison in Syria. Zaidoun Al Zoabi, is a cousin to singer Dylan Connor.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2013/01/11/ac-syrian-activist-free-from-prison.cnn#/video/bestoftv/2013/01/11/ac-syrian-activist-free-from-prison.cnn

No end in sight
President Bashar Assad sounds another death knell for diplomacy

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21569424-president-bashar-assad-sounds-another-death-knell-diplomacy-no-end-sight?fb_source=feed_opengraph&ref=feed_open_graph&_ft_=src.19:sty.347:actrs.55010269:pub_time.1357880506:fbid.10100203317986471:s_obj.5:s_edge.24:s_prnt.28:ft_story_name.StreamStoryOpenGraphAction_og.likes_one2one:mf_objid.10100203317986471:object_id.10100203317986471:object_timeline_token_map.Array:app_id.173277756049645:action_type_id.305566156165682:og_ref.scn/fb_ec/no_end_in_sight:media_type.1:object_type_name.article

Now euthanasia in Assad-Syria?

Reports are made that Assad soldiers have killed mentally disabled on the streets of Aleppo

http://www.balladnews.com/?p=20274

In Syria, war is the new normal
After nearly two years of civil strife, neither side sees a reason to quit fighting.

“So where does this leaves Syria? Not in a good place. The regime does not seem to have lost its taste for bloodshed, and it may even believe that it can fight on indefinitely from Alawite bastions (mainly the coastal area between Latakia and Tartus) even if the opposition is able to take Damascus. The resistance, for its part, has gained battlefield experience the hard way and is a far better fighting force than it was in the early months of the war. It is now better-armed as well, and its international support is growing as Assad’s wanes. With neither side feeling pressure to negotiate a settlement involving power-sharing, the Syrian war grinds on.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-menon-syria-20130109,0,3297621.story

video of Syrian refugees in Lebanon
يوميات اللاجئين السوريين في عرسال / لبنان

@244. 99% of Hassan’s tweets are marked “must read” or “important” and they turn about to be about as important as umm, someone saying “Assad will be overthrown soon” i.e. they are guessing based on wishful thinking.

LOL READ ‘EM AND WEEP BOYS! READ ‘EM AND WEEP!

AND THIS IS FROM TIME MAGAZINE, A “FRIEND” OF THE FAKE REVOLUTION
ANY VOTE FOR PRESIDENT AND ASSAD WINS 70% AUTOMATICALLY!

Aleppo’s Deadly Stalemate: A Visit to Syria’s Divided Metropolis

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/11/14/aleppos-deadly-stalemate-a-visit-to-syrias-divided-metropolis/#ixzz2HdORTghb

The street warfare isn’t winning the rebels any more friends. The urbane Aleppans have never really warmed to the opposition fighers, most of whom come from religiously conservative Sunni Muslim small-towns–and there is growing concern that the rebels are turning more sectarian. The rebels know they’re not really welcome.

“The Aleppans here, all of them, are loyal to the criminal Bashar, they inform on us, they tell the regime where we are, where we go, what we do, even now,” says Abu Sadek, a defector from Assad’s military now with Liwa Suqooral-Sha’ba, one of the three rebel units in Bustan al-Basha.

some math done by Proud Syrian on FB:

some perspective:

60,000 killed in Syria out of a total population of 20,000,000.

That’s about 1 for every 333 people.

Apply this ratio to the USA’s population of 320,000,000 – That’s 960,000 killed.

Apply this ratio to China’s population of 1,300,000,000 – That’s more than 4,000,000 killed.

Now the real question is… would the world wait silently while 960,000 Americans were killed? Would they wait silently while 4,000,000 Chinese were killed?

I don’t think so.

Actually, the world would have to sit on its hands if 4 million Chinese were killed. With that country, if things break apart there’s not much the rest of the world can do about it.

You can’t invade or bomb a country that is the size of a continent with 1.3 billion people. Even humanitarian aid will be limited to major cities on the coast.

I’m fascinated by the Middle East because it is similar in complexity to the place I came from. We’re used to deaths and civil wars. 60000 dead is nothing.

Revenire is an idiot. No one takes him seriously. I hope he never takes his medications.

TARA,
why are you thpreading terroritht propaganda , the idiot doesn’t like that and he inthithtth that the Taftanaz Airbathe ith fully in the handth of Jund Al-Athad

I wonder if the idiots know or care that little athad air force, in a last ditch efforts to thwart the rebels bombed the building where little athad pilots were hiding to prevent the rebels from arresting those criminals.

Also, do the representatives of Khamenei on this blog know that little athad air force was also trying to murder the Iranian “Foreign experts Shabbee7a” while they were in the custody of the FSA to thwart’s Iran’s efforts in gaining the release of their “expert pilgrims”.

The athads are like scorpions, they know no friends. Stupid is who think they can domesticate a scorpion.

Assad employs 1000s of JimmySaviles in his prisons to abuse children.

https://twitter.com/RanaKabbani54/status/289674343452123136

Meeting on Syria with RF participation to be held in Geneva
http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/618695.html

Taftanaz update. Good news, FSA have overrun most of the airport.

How is Chavez doing today?

Have you done your Kim Jung Un prayers today?

Is حافر alive again, yet?

Did the fool prethident bathar acquire a brain yet?

Just read this piece of propaganda today:

http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb080113.htm

► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ►
here are some facts about how the Chavez clan has established themselves in Venezuela:

The greedy clan

► Father Hugo senior was ten years governor of Barinas. At his side in an advisory capacity: his son Argenis(54), who also regularly made headlines on corruption charges. The court charges were however, always rejected.

To become his father’s successor was for Argenis not posssible. Too many scandals. So, the President’s eldest brother Adán took over (59) in the 2008 election – and won.

Hugo Chavez will not agree with everything the brothers are doing. There are reports that he once hammered the Hummer of Argenis with a baseball bat.

► Adán is regarded as the clan chief, he is the “intellectual Chavez”, during the reign of his brother, he was ambassador to Cuba and minister of education. He was traded even as a possible replacement for Hugo Chávez.

This role but now holds the vice president of the country and long-time friend of the Commander, Nicolás Maduro (50). Before Hugo Chavez traveled in December to a new cancer surgery in Cuba, he had explicitly defined Maduro as a possible successor to him.

► Adelis Chavez (51) is vice president of Banco Sofitasa and also tied in closely with the politics: Her oversees the construction of the new stadium in Barinas, financed by the state, and apparently a bottomless pit. Adelis Chavez is responsible for the accounts of the government and also for the finances of the clan.

► Anibal Chávez is the mayor of 270 000 inhabitants town of Sabaneta, which is often called by the followers “the cradle of the revolution.”

► Narciso Chavez is an English teacher, but was parked by his brother Hugo on various ambassadorial posts. He also is regularly confronted with allegations of corruption.

The brother and President watches over this clan, which includes four children and three grandchildren. A son was also well treated : Jorge Arriaza was given the post of Minister of Science.

Only thing that can be concluded is: Syrians are idiots.

The West isn’t interfering, and the reason is simple: As long as Arabs kill each other, the West and Israel don’t have to worry about their interests in the Mideast.

Arab jarab indeed!

252. SYRIAN HAMSTER

“why are you thpreading terroritht propaganda , the idiot doesn’t like that and he inthithtth”

Dude, stop with the th’s. You make no sense and it’s distracting from your main point.

258. HABIB

“Syrians are idiots”

But they think they’re God’s gift to humanity. That’s the irony of it all. They think the rest of the world in on tenterhooks, teetering on disaster, depending on what happens in some little hole-in-the-road outside Aleppo. It would be amusing if it were not for the brutality…

Didnt Syrians learn for decades in their schools, that most countries were envious about the beauty of the country, and the perfection of its ruling President? Well most got a wake up call when they left their “heaven” for a trip.

Here is another quote from ZOO
“It is just a matter of time before they get crushed for good”

But wait, ZOO I thought you wanted Amnesty International to come to secure the fate of the minorities; are you not concerned about the fate of the minority rebels as well? Or is the SAA brave and loyal and eternal in its devotion to the Bab not capable of securing the fate of the minorities?

Russia is not changing its stance you say to us. Well on RT I did read the Laughvrov ministry statement. It only says to give the Prethident’s speech a hearing chance.

It now hides behind the Syrian people’s legitimate right to choose its own form of government.

Now they talk legitimacy?

Today there are NO news on Syria on Alalam or on AL Manar

There are 28 airbases in Syria some mixed and most military only and four of them are out and the 2 International airports are out as well.

Now my dear ZOO the regime is going to rely on SCUDS well let me tell you they are not accurate. You cannot kill the “rats” as some have called the rebels here with SCUDS. And guess what, your eternally loyal SAA does not have enough brave soldiers to do it. Oh it does have thousands of cowards that torture and rape and steel helpless victims but when it comes to a real fight they are nowhere to be seen.

Justice for Hamza one Shabih at a time

Zoozoo
You said Taftanaz will not be taken by the rebels, now Zoozoo proved to be wrong ,what do you say about that, how are you going to spin it?

Same old same old here on SC after a week off.

But while idiot Bashar was doing his final act in opera house, it seems Jabhat al-Nusra took over Taftanaz. That goes to show that donkeys cannot play pianos even if they go to opera houses.

#263 Majie

Yet another All Nusra’s Hit, Claim and Run

“While its fall will embarrass the regime and dent helicopter operations, it will do little to stop airstrikes by government jets, many of which come from bases farther south…..

It is also unclear if the rebels will be able to retain control of the facility. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said government warplanes bombed the air base after the rebel takeover Friday
…
Kanaan, the activist in Idlib, said the rebels seized tanks and helicopters at the base, but added that most if not all of the helicopters were damaged from the fighting and were nonfunctional.

“The regime bombed them to keep the rebels from using them,” he said. The Observatory said around 20 helicopters were captured but that none were in working order.”

http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-seize-key-air-activists-102119430.html

Syria Lover @244

The tweets from the Coalition plan sounds as an advertisement for a new video game.

I am waiting to see the full “transition plan” the the “international experts” at the 2 days conference in the UK came out that they dumped on the powerless Coalition.

@249 Jurgen

“would the world wait silently”

It is far from silent, it’s very talkative, just read the media.

It’s just doing the wrong actions because of their egos.

The Opposition: We are the ministries of a future government

Opposition eyes Syria seat at UN, Arab League
January 11, 2013 03:19 PM

BEIRUT: The opposition Syrian National Coalition has urged the international community to help it take over Syria’s seats at the UN and Arab League as part of efforts to set up a transitional government.

The group, which has been widely recognised by Arab and Western nations as the sole representative of the Syrian people, also asked to be given regime assets frozen as part of international sanctions on the Damascus government.

In statement late Thursday the coalition urged “the international community to end all legitimacy of the Assad regime by granting Syria’s seat at the UN and Arab League to the transitional government” being set up by the opposition.

The coalition, set up in Qatar in November and grouping the majority of opposition forces, including a unified military command, said it was striving to set up a transitional government.

“The Coalition is working with committees composed of technocrats who will serve as the nucleus for future ministries,” the statement read.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jan-11/201859-opposition-eyes-syria-seat-at-un-arab-league.ashx#ixzz2HfyDVtRX
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

In my view, the taken over by Al Nusra terrorists of the Taftanaz air base, if confirmed, will play negatively on the opposition in the current meeting between the USA, Russia and the UN.

The USA will never tolerate that an organization they labelled ‘terrorist’ increases its military power in Syria as it is can threat the region and principally Israel.

Far from being a ‘victory’, I think it is a “nail in the coffin of the rebels” to use an expression from an activist about the regime.
It may well be possible that Syrian forces were ordered not to oppose much resistance so that event falls exactly as the US-UN-Russia meeting is taking place.

UN envoy discusses Syria with US, Russia
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press | January 11, 2013
http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/UN-envoy-discusses-Syria-with-US-Russia-4185495.php

Another hate crime in ‘religiously tolerant’ Turkey

Turkish teacher at Armenian school found murdered in his home
Friday,January 11 2013, Your time is 9:23:12 AM

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-teacher-at-armenian-school-found-murdered-in-his-home.aspx?pageID=238&nID=38840&NewsCatID=341

Zoozoo
The base was destroyed, 20 helicopter were damaged, 25 soldier are dead, several Assad thugs pilots are dead,and you minimize this incident?.
The point also that you predicted it will not fall, your prediction worth zero,all other predictions proved wrong,keep telling us you Qiqi Qiqi and Qiqi qiqi more it is fun.

Al Arabya caught in carrying rebels ‘propaganda’ about Gilles Jacquier’s death.

http://en.rsf.org/syria-french-tv-reporter-s-death-a-year-11-01-2013,43900.html

A July 2012 article in the daily Le Figaro suggested that Jacquier was killed by rebels. But this has now been contradicted by a communiqué from the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), which was reported by Al-Arabiyya TV three days ago, on 8 January. The FSA communiqué said opposition fighters in Syria had announced the capture of members of an armed group working for the Assad regime who had admitted responsibility for Jacquier’s death. The FSA said it was ready to hand over these men to the French authorities or to an international tribunal.

Yesterday, the France 2 programme “Envoyé Spécial” ran an investigative story about the contradictory versions and lack of evidence. It concluded that the parties to the conflict were using his death for “propaganda purposes.”

#271 Majie

Not only you are a failed Cassandra but you are starting Alzheimer: Damascus “liberated”? twice wrong…

Zoozoo
is this an admission that your Qiqi Qiqi was wrong?

More experts about Taftanaz: tactical not strategic gain.

By Erika Solomon and Stephanie Nebehay

BEIRUT/GENEVA, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Rebels seized control of one of Syria’s largest helicopter bases on Friday, opposition sources said, in their first capture of a military airfield used by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
….
TACTICAL, NOT STRATEGIC GAIN

But Yezid Sayigh, at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, said it was not a game-changer, noting that it had taken months for the rebels to overrun a base whose usefulness to the military was already compromised by the clashes around it.

“This is a tactical rather than a strategic gain,” he said.

عاجـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــل | قناة الجيش الحر

طائرة حربية بقيادة طيار قصفت بطريق الخطأ احدى كتائب
النظام في جبل الزاوية
مما ادى الى تدمير سرية كاملة من سرايا لنظام
ويمكرون ويمكر الله.
·

Assad’s Cabinet

Syria’s dictator’s, and the rest of the Iranian-led resistance bloc’s, well-placed advocates in Washington: Hagel, Kerry, Brennan

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/assad-s-cabinet_695090.html

…..
Hagel, Kerry, and Brennan have consistently misread the intentions and calculations of America’s Middle East adversaries. Their picture of the Middle East is not grounded in an accurate understanding of the region’s forces and furies, but is rather drawn from a dream world in which it is possible to turn enemies into allies, lions into lambs, simply through the magical power of words.
As Hagel, Kerry, and Brennan are incapable of comprehending the nature of our adversaries through the pattern of their actions, these three, through their dealings with the region, have also left a discernible pattern, a worrisome pattern.
….
The Obama administration now says that Assad has lost his legitimacy. The Russians want Assad to stick around until, at least, elections in 2014, and the State Department says this is unacceptable. But that’s Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
The same bureaucracy run by Kerry, a man who’s shared meals with Assad and his wife, who’s made the case for his “secular” regime in a sea of Sunni fanaticism, might have a very different, and he’ll have Obama’s ear.

Obama’s second cabinet is his real cabinet. Clinton, Gates, and Petraeus were Obama’s moves on a political gameboard, but Kerry, Hagel and Brennan are about Obama’s policy. That is why the Iranian foreign ministry congratulated Obama on the Hagel nomination. Tehran has read Obama’s moves and sees that he is stacking the deck for a grand bargain that, Iran hopes, will secure Iranian interests throughout the region—including perhaps even Assad’s survival. In any case, U.S. adversaries throughout the region are sleeping a little better these days, knowing that the Americans in high places have no other policy right now but talk.

Majie

I never predict short term details. The only prediction I am making is that the armed rebels may make some “tactical gains” and “tactical retreats” but they will never win that war.
Their scope will remain limited to some areas in the North of Syria but as soon as they’ll loose Turkey’s protection and the GCC funding as part of a political solution, they will collapse.

It is just a matter of time.

Zoozoo
Enjoy

Zoo

Do you think if the world would really care that Assad would be still able to commit such atrocities?

Majed,

Any detail about the incident?

It might be a conscious “error” by a revolutionist at heart pilot.

I met Radwan Ziadeh and Kristen Gilespi yesterday,and I am going to meet Joshua today, there is a conference at Denver University,I have never met Joshua before, I am looking forward for it.any question you want me to ask him?

Tara
the picture was from Taftanaz airbase, we will see more details today
The importance of taking over Taftanas is, this will free 700 JN soldiers to attack Mannagh airbase, the regime had five bases in the northwest,Idlib is still in the Assad thugs hands, but it is clear the regime is in a defensive position,and unable to launch an offence, a win here and a win there will help clean the area from Assad criminal thugs and demoralize his thugs more.
Come middle of february,the weather will improve and more accomplishment will be seen,

NOTE TO THE PUNK ROCK ‘GENIUS’ AND HIS TALK-MATE: THE BLOG IS NOT CANADA

IF YOU LOOK AT ANY BLOG FROM YOUR COUNTRY IT WILL LOOK ‘CANADIAN’
THAT IS HOW BLOGGER WORKS
LOL MORONS

SyriansRISE_UP ‏@SyriansRISE_UP
@wsscherk Did you ever check that nut Ziad Fadel he worships so much? http://syrianperspective.blogspot.ca/ Conspiracy theorist on steroids

William Scott Scherk ‏@wsscherk
@SyriansRISE_UP — stay in Canada, you DF, Ziad. You are fully protected in anything you say. No Mukhabarat.

William Scott Scherk ‏@wsscherk
@SyriansRISE_UP — the fear is that their network of influence will be revealed (not the Nut Ziad, though) and they will be expelled.

I am amused with the number of posts regarding Revenire needing to remember taking his psychiatric medications, as a pharmacist with specialty in psychiatric medication treatments I will offer him and all other Basharophiles free meds and blister packaging,hopefully with the mental clarity that they will receive thanks to meds they will start working for a better tomorrow for all Syrians..free from the Baathist tyranny,sectarianism, and oppression

280. Juergen

I am sure that these “great democracies” care only about their own constituency ( their ‘own people” ) and their national financial interests.
They don’t give a damn about the others, least about Arabs in poor countries.
The western media are just used to hide their selfishness with big empty words of equality, justice and morals..

That’s what Bashar understands well and the opposition still doesn’t.

279. majedkhaldoun

Sorry, contrary to you, I don’t enjoy seeing Syrians murdered especially by Al Qaeeda terrorists.

I am sure you also enjoyed meeting E.T Ziadeh, your twin expat.

Some of the people posting have got to be blind and delusional to believe that their side can conclusively ‘win’ in Syria. There have only been losers in this country, and that is the obvious. Clearly both the hardline opposition and regime are at fault for destroying the country and should be tried for war crimes. Whether it be death from above in the form of jets or suicide bombs in civilian populated areas. Jabhat Al Nusra is just as guilty as the regime. As for regime supporters, you are delusional to think that this war would be even happening had it not been for the regimes unwillingness to reform. Everybody seems to have, and regrettably want the blood of the other to be on their hands. How the hell are we supposed to build a country when 30% (a combination of security forces and rebels) have decided they want to obliterate the other at all costs, including civilian, infrastructural, and institutional costs? Who is to say that the fighting will cease when the regime leaves? Their are foreign fighters and global interests that seek a piece of the Syrian pie, so before we say that we are ready for the fall of the government, we must prepare ourselves. Syria is for Syrians and no one else. Not Afghanis, Iranians, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, Americans, or Russians.

LOL @ Radwan Ziadeh

He’s a very inspiring speaker.

Zoozoo
They are criminals,such as Assad, I frankly love to see Assad cut to pieces and fed to the dogs,he killed over100,000 syrian.

BRICS nations for allowing Syrian people to solve their internal crisis

Jan 10 2013
http://news.web.india123.com/news/Articles/India/20130110/2135432.html

Expressing concern over the deteriorating situation in Syria, BRICS countries-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa-today called for resolution of the crisis by a process led by the people of the Western Asian nation themselves. “It was quite clear that all of us felt that Syrian people should chose their future,”

Zoo,

“democracies” care only about their own constituency ( their ‘own people” ) and their national financial interests.”

I’d rather prefer to live in a country that values its citizens the most as opposed to a country that value the citizen of their masters the most.

Batta’s swap of Iranian “pilgrims” with Syrian prisoners is unheard of in history. It is usually the other way around. His refusal to negotiate the release of his own Alawis militia is so humiliating to himself and to the Alawi community. He really is without a shame.

Syrialover,

Had the West really wanted to end this they could’ve, I just don’t buy the “geo-political” excuses being used to justify their inaction (as well as the Russians).

Early last year while Baba Amr was being pounded by the Assadists, people I know met personally with Ford. He clearly stated that the US admin is not willing to intervene. Heck even Obama made sure to tell Assad where the red line with the US administration is, dropping cluster bombs, barrel bombs, and unguided bombs against children and civilian targets is ok, shoot a single chemical weapon and that is where they will intervene.

I’m sure that there are many people in the US that care about what is happening in Syria, but whether they turn that care into action is a whole other story.

Take for instance almost every Canadian official I have had contact with has been extremely sympathetic, but when it came to their governments interests that takes precedent over Syria. SUNCOR and PETRO-CANADA did not pull their operations from Syria until December 11th of 2011 when both of them declared a force majeure in regards to their contractual obligations in Syria. That is 6 months after the start of the revolution where two Canadian Corporation were helping an illegitimate government suppress its own citizens aspirations.
http://response.suncor.com/2011/12/suncor-energy-announces-withdrawal-from-syria.html

I am not anti-Western, I am more than grateful for the fact I live in Canada. But my gratefulness should not stop me from criticizing what my elected officials in Canada have fallen short on (which is my guaranteed right by the Canadian constitution btw)

Syria should not turn into a Rwanda for the West to intervene (which is what Ford actually said, that is why he is an IDIOT). The US could’ve convinced the Russians to stop providing Assad and his henchmen with more tools and armament to kill his own people, Russia is nothing more than a third rate has been super power. If the US can waltz into Yugoslavia (a former Soviet colony), do you really think that the “geo-political” atmosphere in the Balkans was better for US interests than in Syria?
(I would like to remind you incase you forgot or was unaware that the first stealth plane ever shot down was there, a F-117 Nighthawk was brought down by Serbian air defence using S-125 Neva-M missiles.)

I’ll say it again anyone believing the US or Russians are honest brokers in this revolution needs to check reality, the Asshat is still perched on his illegitimate throne because both of these countries want him there.

Please don’t mistake me for a regimists nut that lives in the West and laments about how evuuuuuuul they are, I am far far away from that…

RE: Video @279 MajedK,

The thug pilots appear to have been securely delivered to their final abode in lowest hell. Their facial expressions indicate their final states upon entry into such habitat.

On the other hand it is amusing to see Ewe @ the Zoo in hyperdrive to cover up his wlee, wlee….wlee.

Could you imagine having to go through a whole week without such amusement as I did? لاك ولي….ي على آمتي٠

#288 Majie

I know, I know, calm down. Have you thought of eating the pieces yourself? It fits you so well.

“I don’t enjoy seeing Syrians murdered”

No Zoo you just enjoy the “cleanup and disinfection” of Syrian cities and towns by your assadist hyenas…

Btw has the Assadist army finally cleared Darayya or did they “tactically retreat” again?

Turf war feared after Syrian rebel leader killed

Thaer al-Waqqas, northern commander of al-Farouq Brigades, one of Syria’s largest rebel groups, was shot dead at a rebel-held position in the town of Sermin, a few kilometres from Turkey, early on Wednesday morning, rebel sources said.

Al-Waqqas, they said, had been suspected of involvement in the killing four months ago of Firas al-Absi, a main jihadist leader in al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, which Washington dubbed a terrorist organization in December.

http://news.yahoo.com/turf-war-feared-syrian-rebel-leader-killed-080151119.html

__________________________________________________________________

Soonites killing soonites: this is hilarious! lol Long may this continue! lol

I think every Syrian enjoys seeing the terrorist rats being cleansed from the nation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5dmg29NMGM

On another note, I – for one – would love to see the mighty Canadian army invade Syria.

Egypt praises Iran for its effort to stop violence in Syria and shows readiness to cooperate.

Brahimi discusses his Syria proposal with Salehi

Cairo, Jan 11, IRNA

http://www.zawya.com/story/Brahimi_discusses_his_Syria_proposal_with_Salehi-ZAWYA20130111052046/

The UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi has met and discussed his proposal for the resolution of Syria crisis with the Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, a diplomat said on Thursday.

A diplomat close to the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria told IRNA reporter in Cairo that Brahimi has discussed a proposal with the Iranian FM which calls for a halt in violation, establishment of an independent transitional government and the holding of presidential and parliamentarian election in the Arab country.

‘UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria is trying to have the support of Iran as a major regional power from its proposal for the resolution of Syrian crisis.’

In a meeting with Iranian FM in Cairo on Thursday, Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi praised Iran’s efforts for stopping violence in Syria.

Mursi invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) leaders’ upcoming summit meeting in Cairo.

Egyptian president expressed satisfaction over the meeting with the Iranian delegation and called for cooperation between the two countries at different levels.

Salehi, for his part, said that Iran is ready to provide tthe Egyptian nation with the experience it has gained since the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

He also conveyed the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s invitation to the Egyptian president to visit Tehran.

Referring to the crisis in Syria, the Iranian foreign minister stressed that talks and negotiation constituted the only solution to the situation in the Arab state, noting that what is important in Syria is ending the violence, restoring peace and providing welfare for its nation.

‘Meetings among members of Syria contact group which includes Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are good mechanism for finding a solution to the Syrian crisis; there is a good ground for cooperation between Cairo and Tehran.’

Mursi and Salehi also discussed other regional and international developments, including the Palestinian issue.

Earlier Thursday, Salehi also held talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Kamel Amr.

Salehi and Amr discussed the peace plans laid out by both Iran and Syria to end the conflict in the Arab country.

The Iranian minister also voiced Iran’s readiness to help settle the ongoing unrest in Syria.

Salehi visited Benin and Ghana on Saturday and Sunday as well as Burkina Faso on Tuesday

People can talk about how the West could have done this or done that but could they have? I doubt it. What would the West do? Give Al-Qaeda better weapons? Okay – then what? More dead Syrians and later the weapons would be turned on the West as happened in Libya. The West could have bombed Syria sure but that brings risk. People can say the Syrian Air Force could not defend Syria but unless a NATO attack started no one really knows.

#295 Warren

The FSA is rotting from inside. It is becoming evident day after day.
They have become the puppets of the Islamists and Al Qaeeda.

The loss of Taftanaz airbase is an other setback for the army and the regime but that loss, which will help rebels morale, should not be overblown the same way as it can not be ignored, rebels and their backers do not have a workable agenda for Syria,the same is true about Assad who is only willing to accept a plan that keeps him at the helm of the government. If rebels manage to take over the north, that will certainly trigger panic reactions from people in the coastal areas who feel they are next, that has the potential to trigger waves of violence and sectarian cleansing,rebels who failed to win support from Aleppines will have even more problems in the coastal areas,but when you are blinded by hatred and vengeance nothing matters to you other than being able to kill your “enemy”. it is increasingly clear that this violent campaign is fueled by poor rural Syrians even if the movement leaders are not in that category, those people are being used,they are the same ones who are dying on the battle field, do not expect those people to be allowed to rule, nobody wants them including the very people who are paying them now and hailing their “victories”. what a pity.

Zoozoo
I love to feed them to you, only dogs should eat Assad dead body.

More demonstrations in Iraq

I didn’t know Ahrar al Sham operate in Hasaka. FSA take checkpoint. They are quite active considering it is winter season.

Sami

Ask the question to the recruit on SC who just joined the newly created FSM , Free Syrian Mokhabarat.

#Majed

Sorry I am vegeterian

Here is a very important article that should bring the discussion back to Syria and get us out of the distractions of ZOO Revenire and company
حوار في العمق مع صادق جلال العظم: في شأن الثورة ودور المثقف

١٠ كانون الثاني ٢٠١٣
الدكتور صادق جلال العظيم (مواليد دمشق، 1934) واحد من أهم المثقفين السوريين في القرن العشرين والسنوات المنقضية من هذا القرن. غطت مروحة اهتمامه قضايا متنوعة، تمتد من نقد الفكر الديني إلى الشؤون السياسية العربية بعد هزيمة حزيران 1967، إلى حرية الفكر (ذهنية التحريم، وما بعد ذهنية التحريم) إلى الحب العذري، إلى قضايا العلمانية والديمقراطية والعولمة… وتميز دوماً بأسلوب واضح، وباستمرارية أساسية لتوجهاته الفكرية من وراء تغير المناخات الإيديولوجية وبعض أدوات التفكير. تميز الدكتور العظم منذ بداية هذا القرن بانخراطه في الحياة العامة وقضايا الحريات والديمقراطية. كان عضواً مؤسساً لـ«لجان إحياء المجتمع المدني» ومساهماً نشطاً في نقاشات «ربيع دمشق» وأجوائها. ومنذ بداية الثورة أخذ موقفاً مؤيداً لها بوضوح، مع احتفاظه بمسافة للنقد والتقييم. لقد قرن الرجل القول بالعمل، مع بقائه مثقفاً، أولاً وأساساً.
تتشرف «مجموعة الجمهورية» أنها أجرت هذا الحوار المطول بالدكتور العظم، وقد أجري عبر البريد الإلكتروني.
إضاءات:
الثورة السورية هي تصفية حسابات لسورية مع نفسها ودفع فواتير متأخرة عن ما سبق لنا من تقاعس وتخاذل وصمت وجبن سوري.
الانتفاضة الشعبية السورية تسعى لاستعادة الجمهورية عبر الإطاحة بنظام وراثي قديم مفروض ومهترئ بأجهزته كلها، وإحلال نظام حكم جديد ومغاير محله.
نعم، أخشى الإسلام السياسي بعد سقوط النظام وقبله.
في ثقافتنا ومجتمعاتنا ما يكفي من العناصر السلطوية والتسلطية والسلبطجية والأبوية والأبوية المحدثة والثأرية، بما يجعل إعادة إنتاج نظام الاستبداد مجدداً، بصورة أو أخرى، احتمالاً وارداً ومخيفاً.
يقوم معذبو الأرض السورية بثورة على حكم وحزب وطغمة عسكرية– مالية أمنية متسلطة وعلى قيادة وزعامة “وطنية” أبديتها من أبدية الآلهة.
إذا أوصلتنا الثورة، بصورة ما، إلى صناديق الاقتراع، سأعتبر أن حقي قد وصلني كمواطن.
أهم ما يمكن للمثقفين أن يفعلوه بداية، هو التخلص من شيء اسمه وزارة الثقافة، ومن شيء آخر اسمه وزارة الإعلام.
من ميزات العلمانية والديمقراطية أيضاً أنهما توفران أرضية محايدة لتلتقي عليها المذاهب والعقائد الدينية المتنافرة والاقصائية بطبيعتها، وبحيث تتمكن من التعامل مع الفضاء العام والشأن الوطني والساحة السياسية الجامعة.
• على عكس كثير من اليساريين والماركسيين في سوريا والعالم، يبدو موقف صادق جلال العظم واضحاً لا لبس في انحيازه إلى الثورة السورية. أين تكمن جذور الغموض والتشتت اليساري تجاه الثورة؟ وماذا يمكن أن تكون عواقب ذلك على مستقبل اليسار في سوريا؟
بسبب طبيعة هذا السؤال، أسمح لنفسي أن أبدأ بالكلام قليلاً عن نفسي. كثيراً ما سُئلت ما إذا كانت الانتفاضة الشعبية في سوريا على نظام الاستبداد وحكمه وفساده قد فاجأتني أم لم تفاجئني؟ جوابي هو نعم ولا في وقت واحد. نعم، فوجئت بتوقيت اندلاع الانتفاضة مع تخوف كبير في البداية من احتمالات قمعها بسرعة بسبب مما أعرفه عن صلابة المنظومة الأمنية السورية وشراستها القمعية وتغلغلها في مسامات الجسم السوري وتحكمها اليومي بجميع حركاته وسكناته تقريباً. شكّل هذا الواقع عندي (وعند غيري) نوعاً من عقدة النقص الراسخة بالعجز أمام النظام العسكري الأمني الكلي وسطوته، كما أدى إلى استبعاد أية فكرة أو حتى احتمال لقول لا (فردية أو جماعية) كبيرة له. داريت عقدة النقص في داخلي بالتكيف اليومي البطيء مع هذا الواقع الأمني- الاستبدادي المرير والضاغط دوماً، كما داريتها بالاستبطان الجيد لقواعد وأصول التعامل معه بكل ما تتطلبه من نفاق وتظاهر بالتصديق والقبول والتكتم والتقية والتلاعب بالكلمات والتحايل في مواجهة القوة العارية. لولا ذلك لما تمكنت من الاستمرار في حياتي العادية والقيام بالأعمال الروتينية والمهام اليومية، أو من المحافظة على صحتي النفسية والعقلية.
كيف لي إذن أن لا أنحاز لهذه الثورة الشعبية العارمة ضد هذا النوع من الاستبداد والظلم والقهر بغض النظر عن طبيعة القناعات التي أحملها إن كانت يسارية أو ماركسية أو وسطية، أو حتى يمينية؟ مع ذلك، أعتقد أن المنهج الماركسي في البحث والتحليل والتفسير هو الذي يعطينا القدرة الأفضل والأرقى على فهم قيام الثورة وتحديد أسبابها الأعمق والبحث في خلفياتها التاريخية والاجتماعية وإلى جانبها والدفاع عنها.
كلّا، لم أتفاجأ بالثورة على نظام الاستبداد – كما تفاجأ هو– بسبب من بعض التجارب والملاحظات الدالة والمستمدة من المعايشة والتفاعل الحي مع الحياة اليومية في سوريا وبخاصة في دمشق، وهي دلالات وملاحظات وتجارب أثبت النظام عجزه عن التقاطها أو حتى الاقتراب من معناها ومغزاها، لأن طبائع الاستبداد لا تسمح بذلك على ما يبدو. أعود لأقول بأني لم أتفاجأ بالثورة لأنه انتابني (كما انتاب غيري) إحساس مبهم بالتوجس والقلق والخوف على سوريا عموماً بعد القضاء على «ربيع دمشق»، حيث بدت لي سوريا عالقة على حافة هوة سحيقة ما، وأن السقوط آت لا ريب فيه. كانت الحياة في دمشق، على سبيل المثال، تبدو هادئة وعادية ورتيبة على السطح، مع ذلك كنت ألمس وأتأكد أن حمماً بركانية كانت تتفاعل تحت السطح بقليل والجميع يحاول التعامي عنها، قدر الامكان، على أمل أن تبقى تحت السطح لأطول مدة ممكنة ولا تطفو بسرعة على وجه الحياة في البلد. لما قامت الثورة، انفضّ هذا التناقض بين مظهر سطح الحياة الهادئ والطبيعي بزيفه وافتعاله، من ناحية أولى، وبين البركان الحقيقي الذي كان يعتمل تحت السطح، من ناحية ثانية، وكان لا بد لي أن أنحاز إلى الحقيقي والأعمق وأقف إلى جانبه وأترك لغيري مهمة تبرير السطح المزوّر والدفاع عن المزيف والوقوف إلى جانب التافه. استمعت إلى ناس عاديين جداً وبسطاء جداً يعبرون عن الاحساس بهذا التناقض بأقوال عاميّة عفوية مثل : «بدها كبريتة لتولّع»، «بدها شرارة لتهب»، «بدها ولعة لتشتعل»، «بدها فتيشة لتنفجر».
أما في الأوساط الثقافية فقد كان لكل واحد من المثقفين أسلوبه وتشبيهاته واستعاراته الخاصة لقول الحقيقة ذاتها. في مقابلة مع مجلة «نيوز ويك» الأمريكية سنة 2007، عبّر علي فرزات عن الوضع بقوله «إما الاصلاح أو الطوفان”، كان تشبيهي المفضّل في تلك الفترة هو أن سوريا الآن مثل طنجرة بخار ترتفع حرارتها بسرعة ويرتفع ضغطها ساعة بعد ساعة، علماً بأنه جرى تعطيل صمامات الأمان كلها. أما أحمد برقاوي فقد كان يقول في مجالسه الخاصة «إن الشرخ في سوريا قد وقع وقضي الأمر». وكان هناك من يموه على نفسه بالقول «الجميع يعرف حقيقة الوضع في البلد وما يجري فيه، ولكن ماشي الحال..». البعض الآخر توصل إلى قناعة “بأنه لم يبق من النظام سوى وظيفته كصمام أمان أخير حتى لا يقتتل السوريون فيما بينهم”، مع ذلك فوجئ النظام أكثر من غيره باندلاع الانتفاضة والثورة.
أنا أدرك أيضاً أن الثورة السورية هي تصفية حسابات لسورية مع نفسها ودفع فواتير متأخرة عن ما سبق لنا من تقاعس وتخاذل وصمت وجبن سوري في لحظات مثل لحظة حصار مدينة حماة سنة 1982، وتدميرها والفتك بأهلها، ولم تحرك سوريا ساكناً يومها على الرغم من أننا جميعاً كنا نعرف تماماً ما الذي كان يحدث في حماة في ذلك الوقت. كما تقبّلت سوريا لفترة طويلة جرائم حكامها في القتل والتعذيب وارتكاب المذابح والحبس التعسفي والاختفاء القسري وعشرات آلاف المفقودين بهدوء، وكأنّ ذلك كله ممارسة عادية ومسألة طبيعية.
ثم جاءت لحظة توريث السلطة والحكم الجمهوري في سوريا سنة 2000، وبلعت سوريا الإهانة بهدوء ورصانة لا تحسد نفسها عليها في هذه الأيام، وتبذل الدماء الآن لمحو آثارها. وفي اللحظة التي حاول فيها «ربيع دمشق» إشعال شمعة عند نهاية النفق المظلم، تم القضاء عليه وعلى شمعته بشراسة مشهودة، ومرة ثانية سكتت سوريا وتقبلت قمع ربيع دمشقها بروتينية عجيبة. أعود لأقول، بثورتها اليوم تبذل سوريا هذا الكم الهائل من الدماء تكفيرا عن خطاياها هذه كلها ومحواً لعارها، ولذا أنا معها.
أما بالنسبة للشقّ الثاني من السؤال المتعلق بغموض والتباس موقف اليسار من الثورة، فاقول: أولاً، معروف أنّ اليسار كان يجمع ملتزمين ونشطاء وأنصار وكوادر ومؤيدين من الخلفيات والانتماءات الدينية والطائفية والمذهبية والجهوية والأثنية والعشائرية كلها باتجاه مستقبل يتجاوز الانتماءات والولاءات الأولية شبه الطبيعية هذه، باتجاه حالة مدنية وعصرية أرقى. بعد انتهاء الحرب الباردة وانهيار اليسار وتشتته في كل مكان تقريباً (بخاصة الأحزاب الشيوعية بتعددها وتنوعها)، ارتدّ الكثير من هؤلاء اليساريين إلى ولاءاتهم الأولى والأولية والأكثر بدائية، وبخاصة الطائفية والمذهبية والدينية منها، وأخذوا يحددون مواقفهم من الثورة استناداً إلى الولاءات والالتزامات التي عادوا إليها واحتموا بها وليس استناداً إلى يساريتهم المكتسبة والضائعة لاحقاً.
ثانياً، بعد انتهاء الحرب الباردة أيضاً على النحو الذي انتهت عليه، انقسم اليسار إلى كتلة كبيرة تبنت ما يمكن تسميته «ببرنامج المجتمع المدني» والدفاع عنه، وهو البرنامج الذي يؤكد مسائل مثل: احترام شرعة حقوق الإنسان (حتى لو قولاً وبالحد الأدنى فعلاً)، أولوية فكرة المواطنة وممارساتها بالاضافة إلى الحقوق المدنية والحريات العامة، المساواة أمام القانون، فصل السلطات، علمانية الدولة وأجهزتها، القضاء المستقل، الديمقراطية وتداول السلطة والحكم فعلياً، وليس تداولهما بين الآباء والأبناء والأحفاد والأقرباء كما هو حاصل في سوريا اليوم. بعبارة أخرى، الكتلة الأكبر من اليسار تراجعت إلى خط الدفاع الثاني المتمثل «ببرنامج المجتمع المدني» والدفاع عنه في وجه الاستبداد العسكري- الأمني– العائلي القائم من جهة أولى، والظلامية الدينية القروسطية الزاحفة من جهة ثانية. أعتقد أن هذه الكتلة من اليسار على العموم متعاطفة مع الثورة في سوريا، وبالتأكيد ليس لها موقف عدائي منها أو حاد ضدها، علماً بأن لهذه الكتلة دور كبير في صناعة الربيع العربي عموماً. كما أن معظم اليساريين المؤيدين للثورة ينتمون إليها بصورة أو أخرى.
أما الكلتة الأصغر من اليسار فقد تعصّبت لمواقفها السابقة، وكأن شيئاً لم يكن مع انتهاء الحرب الباردة وأخذت تميل مع الوقت إلى المواقف وأساليب العمل ذات الطابع الطالباني–الجهادي أو الطائفي المذهبي المنغلق على نفسه، أو حتى على الإرهاب «البن لاديني» بعنفه الأعمى نكاية بالغرب والرأسمالية العالمية (التي انضمت روسيا والصين إلى عالميتها) والامبريالية. هذه الكتلة من اليسار، عربياً وعالمياً، هي الآن الأكثر عدائية للثورة السورية والأقرب إلى دعم نظام الاستبداد العسكري والأمني والعائلي فيها بحجج كثيرة ليس أقلها تآمر الكون بأسره، فيما يبدو، على هذا النظام المحب للسلام والاستقرار وإن كانت سلامته واستقراره هما من قبيل سلام القبور واستقرارها. يطرب هذا النوع من اليسار بإشغال نفسه «بلعبة الأمم» و«بالتحليلات الجيوسياسية» الكبرى وبحكايات تصادم مصالح الدول العظمى ومشاريعها في الهيمنة في منطقتنا، ولا يريد أن يرى الثورة في سوريا إلاّ من خلال «طربه» هذا، مهملاً كل ما يمت بصلة إلى سوريا والسوريين الأحياء الثائرين اليوم، ومتغاضياً عن الأسباب التي دفعت شعبها إلى الثورة سلمياً وثم إلى حمل السلاح في وجه الطغيان «الوطني» الذي يتحالف معه هذا النوع من اليسار ويتعصّب له. بعبارة أخرى، لا مانع لدى هذا اليسار من التضحية بسوريا إن كان في ذلك انتصاراً موعوداً للجهة الدولية و«الجيوسياسية» التي يريد لها النصر العالمي في «لعبة الأمم»، أي أن الهم الأول عنده ليس سوريا وشعبها الثائر لاستعادة جمهوريته وحريته وكرامته، بل لعبة الأمم على مستوى الكون كله والطرف الذي يراد له الفوز فيها.
• كيف يقف مؤلف “نقد الفكر الديني” إلى جانب ثورة كانت الجوامع مراكز انطلاق مظاهراتها، ويعرض مكونها العسكري اليوم وجها إسلامياً ظاهراً؟ ألا يخشى من الإسلام السياسي بعد سقوط نظام الأسد؟
مؤلف كتاب «نقد الفكر الديني» كان قد وقف مع ثورة الشعب الإيراني على الحكم الشاهنشاهي واستبداده وفساده وأجهزة مخابراته الشهيرة بشراستها هي الأخرى (السافاك) على الرغم من أن الدور القيادي لرجال الدين وآيات الله كان جلياً فيها منذ البداية، وعلى ما أذكر فإن اليسار في تلك الأيام كان برمته تقريباً مؤيداً لثورة الشعب الإيراني وداعماً لها ومهلّلاً لخطابها، على الرغم من خروج المظاهرات يومها من المساجد والحوزات والجنازات. الأمر المهم هنا هو الوقوف مع ثورة الشعب على الطغيان والعسف بغض النظر عن طبيعة الأماكن والمراكز التي ينطلق منها الحراك الشعبي الثوري أو يتجمع عندها.
مؤلف كتاب «نقد الفكر الديني» وقف كذلك مع لاهوت التحرير في أمريكا اللاتينية وغيرها من مناطق العالم، لأن لاهوت التحرير دعم الحراكات الشعبية التحررية في تلك البلدان ضد أشكال مثل طاغية مرزول على شاكلة سوموزا في نيكاراغوا وانقلابي مجرم مثل بينوشيه (Pinochet) في التشيلي، وحكم الجنرالات الدموي في الأرجنتين. بعد هذا كله، هل يمكن لمؤلف الكتاب المذكور أن يتقاعس أو يتخاذل في مسألة الوقوف مع ثورة الشعب السوري على حكم تفوق في طغيانه وقتله وتدميره على سوموزا وبينوشيه وجنرالات الأرجنتين وشاه إيران مجموعين كلهم معاً. التناقض هنا ليس عندي، بل عند الذين انتصروا في يوم ما لثورة الشعب الإيراني ولـ لاهوت التحرير وكنائسه ولحركات التحرر الوطني في كل مكان تقريباً ولكنهم يرفضون الانتصار لثورة الشعب السوري بذريعة أن مظاهراتها واحتجاجاتها تخرج من الجامع وليس من دار الأوبرا أو المسرح الوطني على حد تبرير أدونيس.
نعم، أخشى الإسلام السياسي بعد سقوط النظام وقبله. أخشاه لأسباب أبعد من الوجه الإسلامي الزائد الذي أخذت تظهر به الثورة السورية أمام نفسها وأمام العالم كله. أخشى ذلك لأنه في ثقافتنا ومجتمعاتنا ما يكفي من العناصر السلطوية والتسلطية والسلبطجية والأبوية والأبوية المحدثة والثأرية، بما يجعل إعادة إنتاج نظام الاستبداد مجدداً، بصورة أو أخرى، احتمالاً وارداً ومخيفاً مما يتطلب الحذر الشديد واليقظة التامة. في أحوالنا الراهنة لا يجوز الاستسهال باحتمالات نشوء استبداد عسكري ما، مثلاً، مغلفاً هذه المرة بالعقيدة الدينية والأحكام الشرعية والتعصب المذهبي. لذا أحاول أن أتابع جيداً ما يجري في مصر اليوم، إذ عندما أعطى الرئيس المنتخب هناك محمد مرسي نفسه، فجأة، سلطات وحصانات استبدادية من نوع «لا يسأل عما يفعل وهم يسألون» (وهذا هو تعريف الطاغية)، هبّ نصف المجتمع المصري تقريباً، هبة شعبية عارمة لمنع الرئيس من السير في طريق إعادة إنتاج الاستبداد في مصر حتى لو كان ذلك لفترة معلومة على حد زعمه، وحتى لو كان خطابه خطاباً إسلامياً وشرعياً، حتى مشايخ الأزهر وقفوا إلى جانب الهبة الشعبية كما صوتت القاهرة بـ «لا» مدوية على دستور مرسي المسلوق سلقاً من جانب الإسلاميين (كما يقول المصريون). ولا أعتقد أن سوريا ستكون أقل من مصر في هذا الشأن أو أقل حرصاً على حماية نفسها من عودة الاستبداد بأي صفة كانت. طبعاً، تبقى خيارات المستقبل وأشكاله التاريخية القادمة مفتوحة، ولا توجد ضمانات مسبقة لأحد خاصة عندما نكون أمام أحداث تاريخية كبرى مثل الثورات ونتائجها القريبة والبعيدة.
توقعاتي بالنسبة لهذه المسألة تتلخص في أنه بعد رحيل النظام، وعودة أهل حماة إلى حماه، وأهل حمص إلى حمصهم، وأهل حوارن إلى ما تبقى من بيوتهم، وبعد تجاوز مرحلة قلقة محتملة من الفوضى والانتقامات الثأرية وتصفية الحسابات بين عدد من الأفراد والمجموعات، سيسود مجدداً في البلاد والمجتمع مزاج التدين الشعبي السوري البسيط والسمح والذي عرفت به سوريا المعاصرة، وعرف به شعب سوريا منذ عهد الملك فيصل.
من ناحية ثانية، عندما تبدأ عملية إعادة الإعمار والبناء، أعتقد أن رأس المال السوري والبرجوازية السورية عموماً ستتقدمان بقوة لقيادة مسيرة الإعمار والبناء هذه والاستثمار فيها والهيمنة عليها. وسترى سوريا على الأرجح بروز شخصيات ورجالات وقيادات جديدة طالعة من هذه الأوساط بحكم استمرار العملية وتصاعدها. لذا، أعتقد أن الإسلام الذي سوف يطفو على السطح سيكون إسلام “البزنس” وإسلام رجال الأعمال وأصحاب المشاريع والشرائح التجارية، وهو غير الاسلام السياسي الذي نتخوف منه بسبب تصلبه وتشدده في أتون المعركة الجارية. في مثل هذا المناخ المتوقع سيجري استيعاب تيارات الاسلام السياسي الأكثر تعنتاً وتخفيفها في بحر الاسلام الشعبي التقليدي ونموذج الاسلام التجاري–البزنس السوري المعتاد. أي أن سوريا غير مرشحة لسيادة ذلك النوع من الاسلام الذي يمنع التعليم ويحرق المدارس ويغلق الجامعات ويعطّل المعاهد ويحرم المرأة من التعليم والعمل المنتج. إذا أوصلنا الثورة إلى صناديق الاقتراع بأمان نسبي، لا أعتقد أن أياً من تيارات الاسلام السياسي في سوريا سيتمكن من اكتساح نتائج الانتخابات على الطريقة المصرية أو التونسية.
• هل من صراع طبقي كامن في الثورة السورية؟ وكيف يتلاقى أو يتصادم مع البعد الطائفي الأكثر حضوراً في الخطاب الإعلامي والثقافي المعني بالثورة؟
نعم، للثورة في سوريا بعدها الطبقي الصراعي دون الاستهتار ببعدها الديني–المذهبي الصراعي أيضاً، لكن علينا ألاّ نأخذ المسألة الطبقية هنا بمعناها الماركسي–الأوروبي الكلاسيكي، حيث تتواجه بروليتاريا صناعية وطبقة عاملة عموماً من جهة، مع طبقة برجوازية مالكة لوسائل الانتاج ومحتكرة لفضل القيمة، من جهة ثانية. الأقرب إلى واقعنا هو صراع طبقي كما شخصه وبيّنه فرانز فانون في كتابه الأشهر «معذبو الأرض» ومن المفيد العودة إليه اليوم في أية محاولة لتشخيص الثورة السورية وفهم طبيعتها، بخاصة أن فانون كان رائداً حقاً في وصف آليات ومراحل تحول قوى سياسية وأحزاب وتنظيمات بدأت كأحزاب وحركات تحرر وطني في مجتمعات عالم ثالثية مقهورة، إلى طغم حاكمة انفصلت تماماً عن بداياتها وقواعدها الشعبية الأولى وعن البرامج التحررية التي تبنتها بداية وعن الأغراض التي جاءت من أجلها لتقوم بقمع جماهير بلادها الشعبية من معذبي أرضها وتدوس على رقابهم، ثم تتجه بالضرورة إلى تمجيد القائد الأوحد الذي يخرج من صفوفها إلى رفع شخصه فوق مستوى البشر والأرض والوطن، وصولاً إلى درجة التأليه، وحتى تجاوز حدودها. هذا كله دفاعاً عن احتكار الثروة والسلطة معاً مع ما يرافقهما من امتيازات ومغانم ومصالح طبقية وفئوية ضيقة على حساب البقية الباقية من البلاد وأهل البلاد وشعب البلاد. فالصراع الطبقي موجود في الثورة السورية بهذا المعنى، حيث يقوم معذبو الأرض السورية بثورة على حكم وحزب وطغمة عسكرية– مالية أمنية متسلطة وعلى قيادة وزعامة «وطنية» أبديتها من أبدية الآلهة. المفارقة الملفتة هنا هي أن عمال وفلاحي وحرفيي وطلبة وصغار كسبة سوريا (والجيش الحر منهم وفيهم) هم الذين يشكلون القاعدة الطبقية للثورة على حزب كان يقدم نفسه في يوم من الأيام على أنه حزب العمال والفلاحين وعلى قيادة «وطنية» كانت تدعي أنها بالفعل منهم وفيهم وجاءت أصلاً لتخلصهم من مظالم إقطاعية وبورجوازية واستعمارية سابقة. هذه الكتلة من معذبي الأرض السورية لا تتحرك بوعي طبقي-مصلحي واضح وحيد، بل تتحرك أيضاً بفعل انتماءاتها الدينية وعواطفها الطائفية وولاءاتها المذهبية، وبنوازع الثأر والانتقام لكرامتها المهدورة وحرياتها المسلوبة، وواقع القهر الشديد الذي عاشته وتعيشه، بالإضافة إلى تهميشها الدائم وخيباتها المتراكمة والمستمرة.
• ما هي رؤيتكم لآليات الانتقال الديمقراطي في سورية؟
لا أعتقد أن سورياً واحداً اليوم يملك رؤية واضحة حقاً أو تصور متماسك لكيفية الانتقال الديمقراطي وألياته في بلده بعد رحيل النظام الأسدي. إذا أوصلتنا الثورة، بصورة ما، إلى صناديق الاقتراع، سأعتبر أن حقي قد وصلني كمواطن. من الطبيعي، كذلك، أن يتطلع شعب سوريا الثائر إلى يُسر الديمقراطية بعد عُسر الاستبداد والطغيان والقهر والحرمان. تفرض الديمقراطية نفسها هنا كخيار بديل لأسباب كثيرة على رأسها طاقتها الاستيعابية لعناصر الموزاييك السوري الغني الذي هو شعب سوريا بتنوعه وتلاوينه. يعني هذا أن الديمقراطية في سوريا ستحتوي على مقدار معين من «المحاصصة» التي لا مفر منها في الظرف الحالي، إلى أن نصل إلى ديمقراطية المواطن الحر بعيداً عن الاعتبارات الأخرى كلياً، أما الآليات الفعلية للانتقال إلى الحالة الديمقراطية، فلا يمكن الجزم أو حتى التنبؤ بها لأنها تعتمد على صيرورة الثورة ومسارها الذي مازال مفتوحاً على المفاجآت والاحتمالات كلها. الواقعية تدعوني إلى أن لا أتوسع في خيالي وتوقعاتي حول هذا الموضوع، بل النظر إلى الواقع كما جرى ويجري حولي، أي في بلدان مثل مصر وتونس وليبيا ولبنان والعراق حيث وصلت تلك المجتمعات إلى حالة ديمقراطية ما قلقة ومضطربة عبر مرحلة انتقالية كان فيها الكثير من العنف والقلاقل والغموض والالتباس، على أثر أحداث جسام زلزلت مجتمعاتها وأطاحت بأنظمة حكمها. وقياساً على هذا الواقع المُشاهد، أتوقع شيئاً شبيهاً لسوريا، ربما أكثر فوضوية واضطراباً وعنفاً من النماذج الأخرى لأسباب تخص الثورة السورية وتخص الوحشية الفائقة التي لجأ إليها النظام في محاولة قمعها وإيقافها.
• كيف تقيم تفاعل المثقفين السوريين مع الثورة؟ وماذا يحتمل في تقديرك أن تكون مواقع المثقفين وأدوارهم في سورية الجديدة؟
أقيمه تقييماً إيجابياً على العموم. أريد أن أذكّر هنا أنه قبل اندلاع الثورة بزمان بعيد، كان مثقفو سوريا (وما زالوا) من مالئي الدنيا وشاغلي الناس، وانطباعي هو أن أعداداً لا تحصى منهم تقف اليوم مع الثورة وتعبر عنها، كل على طريقته، وتعمل ما في وسعها على مساعدتها على الاستمرار والانتصار.
أما الحفنة الصغيرة من المثقفين والفنانين السوريين الذين ناصبوا الثورة العداء أو وقفوا ضدها بحياء أو بنوع من الحياد الإيجابي أحياناً والحياد السلبي في أحيان أخرى، فهم معروفون ومعدودون جيداً ولا يشكلون إلاّ قلة قليلة، ولا ينطبق عليهم، بالتأكيد، القول العربي الشهير «إن الكرام قليل»، في الوقت الذي تمر عليهم الثورة مرور الكرام.
يعيدني السؤال عن علاقة المثقف بالثورة إلى سبعينيات القرن الماضي، حيث احتدم الجدل والخلاف والنقاش والفعل ورد الفعل داخل الثورة الفلسطينية نفسها حول هذه المسألة بالذات، وأسهم في ذلك كله وشارك عدد لا بأس به من مثقفي العالم العربي من كل مكان تقريباً. أثناء احتدام هذا الجدل، كنت أعمل في مركز الأبحاث التابع لمنظمة التحرير في بيروت وكنت عضواً مؤسساً لمجلة «شؤون فلسطينية» وعضواً في هيئة تحريرها. لذا تسنى لي أن أتابع عن كثب الضجة الكبيرة المثارة وقتها حول علاقة المثقف بالثورة. أما الرموز الملخّصة للشرر المتطاير وقتها فكانت: نموذج المثقف العامل في أجهزة منظمة التحرير، مثل مركز الأبحاث ومركز التخطيط وفي صحافة المنظمة وإعلامها، وحتى في مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية المستقلة عن منظمة التحرير، يقابله نموذج الفدائي أو المقاتل في الخطوط الأمامية للثورة. أما الرمز الثاني فكان «الكلمة» في مقابل «الرصاصة»، وهل تفعل الكلمة فعل الرصاصة! وما صلة الرصاصة بالكلمة وأصحابها وما إلى ذلك من كلام سخيف. في التحليل الأخير، ظل هذا الخصام الثقافي عقيماً ولم يسفر عن نتيجة مفيدة لأحد، ووصلتُ إلى قناعة بأن السؤال بالأساس غلط بغلط، وبأن المشكلة الأولية زائفة ولا طائل منها، لأن المضمر في السؤال الأساسي هو افتراض شائع بأنه لا بد أن تكون للمثقف علاقة استثنائية بالثورة هي غير علاقة الطبيب أو الصيدلي أو المحامي أو الموظف أو الانسان العادي في الشارع، مثلاً. في نظري، يُحمّل هذا الافتراض الثقافة والمثقف أكثر بكثير مما يحتملانه من الأدوار والأعباء، فالمثقفون لا يصنعون الثورات أو يقودونها، قد يمهدون لها ويحرضون عليها ويصوغون بياناتها وبرامجها وينشرون دعايتها ويكتبون أدبها وينشدون شعرها وينتجون تحليلاتها ويموتون في سبيلها…، كما حدث مع غسان كنفاني وكمال ناصر ولوركا، وغيرهم كثير. لا أريد للثورة في سوريا أن تقع في مطب إعادة إنتاج هذا النوع من الخلاف والجدال والخصام، كما في كلام ظهر عن «الخنادق» و«الفنادق»، الذي أثبت عقمه عبر مسيرة الثورة الفلسطينية.
بالنسبة لسوريا الجديدة، فإن أهم ما يمكن للمثقفين أن يفعلوه بداية، هو التخلص من شيء اسمه وزارة الثقافة، ومن شيء آخر اسمه وزارة الإعلام، ثم تشكيل هيئاتهم الثقافية ومنتدياتهم الأدبية وحلقاتهم الفكرية واتحاداتهم المهنية المستقلة ذاتياً كلها وإدارتها جميعاً بغير تبعية لأحد أو هيمنة لطرف. بعد ذلك، هناك ما هو متعارف عليه من قيم الدفاع عن حرية الفكر والضمير والتعبير والإعلام وتداول المعلومات التي يجب الحرص عليها بشدة والتي عانينا معاناة فظيعة بسبب سلبها واحتكارها وغيابها. بعدها، على المثقفين أن يجودوا بأفضل ما عندهم ولديهم ويقدموه للناس في كل مكان، حتى يبقى المثقف في سوريا الجديدة مالئاً للدنيا وشاغلاً للناس. وبالفعل، ملأ المثقفون السوريون الدنيا وشغلوا الناس أثناء «ربيع دمشق» على قصره. فعلى الرغم من عقود سورية– بعثية– مخابراتية طويلة من الرقابة والحظر والمنع والمصادرة للمطبوعات والكتب والمجلات وتمزيق الصحف والجرائد وطمس كلمات في المعاجم والقواميس وسيطرة وسائل إعلام وثقافة رسمية واحدة موحدة في سوريا ذلك الزمان، أثبت المثقفون، عبر ما أنتجوه من كتابات ووثائق وتحليلات وتعليقات وانتقادات ومقالات، في فترة «ربيع دمشق»، أنهم أبناء الحاضر بكل معنى الكلمة أسلوباً ومعنى ومحتوى، وأنهم لم يتأخروا لحظة واحدة عن عصرهم وزمنهم وعالمهم الأوسع بتطوراته ومتغيراته كلها. كما أثبتوا أن هذه السنوات الطويلة من سياسة الرقابة والمنع لم تؤثر فيهم بشيء أو تمنع عنهم شيئاً له علاقة بثقافة العالم وفكره وفلسفاته وسياساته وأخباره الأخرى. وليتبين، في التحليل الأخير، أن السنوات المشؤومة إياها ذهبت هدراً وسدى وكأنها لم تكن بالنسبة لسلطات الرقابة الحاكمة.
ولأكون واقعياً، أقول أنه إذا تحقق 25-30 بالمئة فقط من هذا كله في سوريا الجديدة، تكون سوريا، عندئذ، قد حققت تقدماً هائلاً وقفزة كبيرة إلى الأمام. ملاحظة جانبية: عندما نتكلم عن الفعل الثقافي وفاعلية الثقافة، لا بد من أن نأخذ الأمر على الموجة الطويلة، وليس بمناسبة حدث ما بعينه حتى لو كان ثورة عارمة، لأن الفعل الثقافي تراكمي اجتماعياً وبطيء تاريخياً، ولا تظهر نتائجه النوعية إلاّ متأخرة. عندما تابعت ما كان يجري في ميدان التحرير في القاهرة وفي الميادين العربية الأخرى الشبيهة به، ودققت في الشعارات المرفوعة والمطالب المطروحة والأهداف المطلوبة والأشواق الفائضة، وسمعت كلمات وعبارات صادرة عن هذه الجموع الشابة مثل: الكرامة والحرية والعدالة الاجتماعية والدستور والتسامح الديني والمجتمع المدني وحقوق الانسان، فكرت فوراً بالفعل الثقافي التراكمي الذي فعلته سلسلة طويلة من المثقفين والأدباء والمفكرين وأساتذة الجامعات تمتد، لربما، من أحمد أمين إلى عبد الله العروي ومحمد عابد الجابري، مروراً بـ طه حسين وفؤاد زكريا وزكريا ابراهيم ولويس عوض وزكي نجيب محمود ونصر حامد أبو زيد، وفي سوريا تحديداً بـ جميل صليبا وأنطون مقدسي وأديب اللجمي وعادل العوا وياسين الحافظ والطيب تيزيني، إلى آخر اللائحة الطويلة جداً.
• كمثقف علماني، يساري التوجه، يرفض علمانيون ويساريون تسمية ما يجري في سوريا على أنه ثورة على عكس ما تذهب إليه. على ماذا يستندون في رأيهم هذا في تقديركم؟ وهل هي فعلاً ثورة؟
في مناقشة هذا الموضوع أبدأ بالمعايير المحلية. في سنة 1952، نفّذ الضباط الأحرار في مصر انقلاباً عسكرياً أطاح بالحكم الملكي هناك، وسميّ الانقلاب «ثورة 23 يوليو». في سنة 1958، نفّذ ضباط في الجيش العراقي انقلاباً عسكرياً بقيادة الجنرال عبد الكريم قاسم، أطاح بالحكم الملكي هناك أيضاً، وأصبح اسم الانقلاب «ثورة 14 تموز». وتوالت الانقلابات العسكرية في العراق: انقلاب عسكري في 8 شباط 1963 تحول إلى «ثورة 14 رمضان»، انقلاب إضافي سنة 1968 أصبح «ثورة 17 تموز». وفي سنة 1963، نفذّت مجموعة الضباط الريفيين في سوريا انقلاباً عسكرياً استولوا فيه على السلطة المدنية في البلاد وقتها، وأخذ انقلابهم اسم «ثورة 8 آذار» وظهر شيء جديد عربياً اسمه مجلس قيادة الثورة. بعد هزيمة الجيوش العربية أمام اسرائيل في حرب «الأيام الستة» في حزيران 1967، صعدت المقاومة الفلسطينية المسلحة (الكفاح المسلح) لمقارعة الاحتلال الاسرائيلي الجديد، وسميّ ذلك كله «بالثورة الفلسطينية»، وشعارها «إنها لثورة حتى النصر». وفي سنة 1978-1979، قامت هبة شعبية هائلة في إيران أطاحت بحكم الشاه– بقيادة رجال الدين الشيعة- وسميت الحركة كلها «بالثورة الاسلامية في إيران». فإذا جرى العرف العربي، لأكثر من نصف قرن، على تسمية هذه الانقلابات العسكرية كلها، ومعها الكفاح الفلسطيني المسلح والهبة الشعبية الايرانية بالثورات، فلماذا يبخلون على ما يجترحه الشعب السوري من ملحمة بطولية اليوم في مقارعة الاستبداد والطغيان بلقب «ثورة»؟ علماً بأن معظم هؤلاء البخلاء كانوا قد جاروا التيار العام في وصف الأحداث المذكورة «بالثورات». الآن، إلى ماذا يستند هؤلاء البخلاء في بخلهم هذا؟ تقديري أن معظمهم يحمل بيده مسطرة خاصة يقيس بها مجريات التاريخ والأحداث المصيرية الجسام، ثم يطلق على كل واحدة منها الأوصاف والتسميات والتصنيفات التي تمليها عليه مسطرته الصغيرة المتحجرة. ينطبق هذا على القوميين بالنسبة لانقلاب عبد الناصر في مصر، مثلاً، وعلى اليسار والكثير من الشيوعيين بالنسبة لانقلاب عبد الكريم قاسم في العراق، وعلى الإسلاميين بالنسبة لثورة آية الله الخميني في إيران، وعلى قدامى الشيوعيين الذين يفتقدون في الثورة السورية الحزب الطليعي والقائد الكاريزماتيكي الملهم والنظرية الثورية الجاهزة، إلى آخر عناصر المسطرة مسبقة الصنع. أضف إلى ذلك ما كنت قد ذكرته سابقاً من أثر انحلال الأطر والجوامع السياسية والثقافية السابقة، وما رافق ذلك من عودة الكثيرين من هؤلاء البخلاء إلى عصبياتهم الطائفية والمذهبية والجهوية والإثنية الأولى، وإلى ولاءاتها الأكثر بدائية، مما ضاعف عدد المساطر الذاتية الجديدة التي تقاس بها ثورة الشعب السوري وتصنف على أساسها.
مع ذلك، إذا أراد بعض هؤلاء البخلاء وصل النظريات الثورية الجاهزة بالثورة في سوريا، فهذا موجود أيضاً، فالثورة السورية مارست بعفوية وتلقائية النظرية الثورية القائلة «بالبؤر الثورية» أو «الفوكو» (Foco) كما شرحها المنظر الفرنسي الشاب يومها ريجيس دوبريه في كتابه ذائع الصيت وقتها «ثورة في الثورة». كما تمارس الثورة عفوياً، وبلا الكثير من التنظير، ما كان قد تم التنظير له مطولاً في مرحلة سابقة، حول اتباع حروب التحرير الشعبية تكتيكات تُشتت القوة العسكرية المتفوقة بقوتها النارية وتبعثرها في كل مكان ممكن، مما يؤدي إلى شللها وإلى تحييد تفوقها الناري والعددي والعتادي. تمارس الثورة السورية كذلك وبشكل عفوي وحتى دون أن تدري، على الأرجح، النظرية الثورية الصينية–الماوية القديمة (والتي قيل الكثير فيها عربياً وبخاصة من جانب بعض هؤلاء البخلاء) القائلة بتقدم الأرياف الثائرة إلى محاصرة المدن وإسقاطها الواحدة بعد الأخرى، باعتبارها الحصون الأخيرة للسلطة التي يطالب الشعب بإزاحتها. تعيش التنسيقيات هي أيضاً في البحر الشعبي السوري الواسع «كما يعيش السمك في الماء» على حد تعبير شهير قدمته النظرية الثورية الصينية للعالم.
أعتقد أن ما يجري في سوريا الآن هو، أولاً، انتفاضة شعبية عارمة بالمعنى الكلاسيكي للانتفاضة كما ابتدعها الشعب الفلسطيني، وثم اضطر إلى عسكرتها، أي انتفاضة على طغيان عسكري تحولت قوات جيشه الضاربة إلى جيش احتلال كامل الأوصاف، يدّمر الحجر والبلد ويقتل البشر دون حساب. وهو، ثانياً، ثورة بمعنى أن الانتفاضة الشعبية السورية تسعى لاستعادة الجمهورية عبر الإطاحة بنظام وراثي قديم مفروض ومهترئ بأجهزته كلها، وإحلال نظام حكم جديد ومغاير محله. ألا يكفي هذا كله للاعتراف بأن في سوريا ثورة حقيقية اليوم؟.
• بين أن يكون أفعى تختنق إن لم تغير جلدها، أو حرباء متلونة لا تكف عن تغيير مظهرها بحسب تغيرات الظروف من حولها (على ما ورد في سجال لك مع أدونيس)، كيف ترى أن يتفاعل المثقف مع واقع متغير؟ وبصورة عامة، لماذا يبدو أن المثقفين في مجالنا من العالم مُتغيرون أكثر مما هم مغيرون؟
بعيداً عن الاستعارات والتشبيهات بالأفاعي والحرباءات التي بدأها أدونيس، أقول: لا يوجد جواب جامع مانع وشافي على هذا النوع من الأسئلة في عالمنا العربي، لا سيّما بغياب أية معطيات موثوقة أو معلومات ميدانية أو عمليات سبر للرأي العام عموماً ولدى المثقفين تحديداً. لذلك لا بد لي من الاستناد في كلامي إلى الحدس والعموميات والانطباعات لا أكثر. فالاختلاف في توجهات المثقفين، كأفراد وكمجموعات، والتنوع في أمزجتهم وطبيعة اهتماماتهم، لا تسمح بأجوبة شافية ودقيقة في هذه المسألة.
بالنسبة لي شخصياً، مطلوب من المثقف أن يأخذ دوماً المستجدات التي يأتي بها الواقع المتغّير في الاعتبار، واستيعابها بصورة أو أخرى، بعقلية نقدية منفتحة، أي نقدية بالنسبة للواقع المتغير نفسه ولاتجاهات تغيره، من ناحية أولى، بالنسبة لذات المثقف نفسه، وللمقولات والمسلمات والافتراضات التي يحملها أصلاً ويقارب بها الواقع المتغير، من ناحية ثانية. أفترض أن المثقف الجاد والمثابر يمتحن جهازه الثقافي والمعرفي والفكري بما يحمله من التزامات ومسؤوليات على الواقع المتحرك كما أنه يعيد النظر في جهازه المعرفي والثقافي هذا على ضوء تجربته مع الواقع ومتغيراته ومستجداته. كما أنه يستخدم جهازه في نقد الواقع حين يرى لزوماً لذلك. أصلاً، الثقافة الحية حقاً لا تتوقف عن نقد وإعادة نقد نفسها وعن إعادة النظر في افتراضاتها الأولية وفي منطلقاتها الأساسية، وإلاّ لما تمكنت من تجاوز حاضرها وصنع مستقبلها. أعرف أن هذا كلام في العموميات، وإذا أردت التحديد أذكر، مثلاً، أن مثقفاً وشاعراً كبيراً مثل محمد الماغوط انتهى إلى حالة من اليأس العميق والتشاؤم الذي لا يرحم والسوداوية المفجعة في مواجهة الواقع العربي المتغير وتعامله معه. فضّل أدونيس الإنكار والتهرّب والتبرير في تعامله مع الواقع المتغير الذي اسمه الربيع العربي وبخاصة الثورة الشعبية في سوريا. كان أدونيس قد رفع شعار «مواقف من أجل التغيير والحرية والإبداع» في مجلته المعروفة «مواقف»، لكن عندما بدأ التغيير الجدي في سوريا واقتربت الحرية من سوريا، تراجع أدونيس أكثر من خطوتين إلى الوراء، بدل الاستيعاب النقدي الجاد لمستجدات الواقع العربي المتغير، وبدل إعادة النظر النقدية في مسلّمات جهازه الثقافي والمعرفي على ضوء الواقع العربي والسوري المتحرك والجديد. تفترض الشعارات إياها أن مثقفاً مثل أدونيس سيكون في طليعة المنحازين للتغيير والحرية في سوريا، مثلاً، والدفاع عنهما، ولكنه فضّل النأي بنفسه عن هذا كله ورمى بشعاره في مزبلة التاريخ.
من جهة أخرى، نحن نعرف أن الواقع المتغير يتغيّر أحياناً ببطء شديد، مما يؤدي إلى الإحباط والقنوط، وفي أحيان أخرى يتغير بصورة فجائية زلزالية وكوارثية تؤدي إلى الذهول والضياع لدى المثقف وغير المثقف على حد سواء. ولا توجد طريقة حتى الآن لتحديد مسبق لطبيعة تعامل أي مثقف أو مجموعة من المثقفين مع هذا النوع من التغير الفجائي الزلزالي الذي اسمه الثورة في سوريا اليوم وكيفية تعامل المثقفين السوريين وغير السوريين معه. مثال آخر، شكل كل من هزيمة العرب أمام اسرائيل في حرب 1967، وانهيار الاتحاد السوفيتي والفكرة الشيوعية بأكملها معه، تغيّراً تاريخياً من النوع الفجائي الزلزالي الكوارثي في الواقع القائم. وليس هنا المكان المناسب لمحاولة رصد تعامل المثقفين العرب، مثلاً، مع هذين المتغيرين، فهناك من استوعب المستجدات وفهم المغزى، وهناك من نقد الواقع والذات في الوقت نفسه، وهناك من رفض وكابر، وهناك من أنكر وبرّر، وهناك من يئس وترك، وهناك من طار عقله كما بيّن ممدوح عدوان في كراسه الجميل «دفاعاً عن الجنون»، وهناك من … وهناك من … السؤال صعب ومتغيرات الحياة العربية بخاصة، تجعل الإجابة عنه أكثر صعوبة من السؤال نفسه.
• بنيت العلمانية العربية في أحد جوانبها على فكرة قصور المجتمعات العربية وأنها غير مؤهلة للديمقراطية، وربما هذا هو مؤدى فكرة التنوير الذي نادت به نخب علمانية، والذي يقع على عاتقه مهمة تحضير هذه المجتمعات. د. صادق هل ترى الثورات العربية نقضاً لهذه الفكرة؟ هل حان الوقت للتكلم عن علمانية بمضامين جديدة إذاً؟
في الأساس لا توجد شعوب أو مجتمعات مؤهلة للديمقراطية بطبيعتها وبصورة مسبقة أكثر من شعوب ومجتمعات أخرى. حيثما نظرنا شرقاً أو غرباً، في عالمنا المعاصر، نجد أن الديمقراطية عادة مكتسبة، كما أن العلمانية حالة مكتسبة أيضاً وليس بهذه السهولة على الإطلاق، فالموانع كانت دوماً كبيرة والعقبات كثيرة داخلياً وخارجياً عند الجميع. كما أني لا أعتقد أن النخب التنويرية العلمانية العربية كان هدفها أصلاً مجرد تحضير وإعداد مجتمعاتها لتصبح مؤهلة لتقبل الديمقراطية. كان هدفها وطموحها ومطلبها هو نهضة شاملة من مفرداتها الديمقراطية والعلمانية. الإحساس الواقعي جداً بالقصور العميق والعجز المزمن كان عامّاً وطاماً لكل مجتمعات وثقافات الكرة الأرضية منذ الطفرة التي طرأت على أوروبا الغربية عبر الثورة العلمية في القرن السابع عشر، ومن ثم الثورة الصناعية في القرن التاسع عشر، وما ترتب عليهما من نتائج وتحولات تاريخية عظمى. بسبب من واقع هذا القصور العميق والعجز المستمر والانكشاف الكامل، دخلت مصطلحات الاصلاح والتجديد والتحديث والتنوير والمعاصرة والنهضة مجال التداول والأخذ والرد والفعل ورد الفعل ليس عندنا فقط، بل عند الحضارات والثقافات والشعوب التاريخية الحية الأخرى أيضاً. عند البحث في التنوير والنهضة عندنا، نحن نعود دوماً إلى جمال الدين الأفغاني ومحمد عبده، لكن قليلاً من التدقيق سيبين أنه كان هناك ما يشبه الأفغاني ومحمد عبده وما يمثلانه في إيران وروسيا والهند والصين واليابان، وفي إفريقيا أيضاً. لذلك أرى أن مسألة التنوير أكبر بكثير من مجموعات من النخب المثقفة والعلمانية التي تحاول تأهيل شعوبها لتقبل الديمقراطية عبر التوعية بضرورة العلمانية والعلمنة لتجاوز مشاكل القصور والعجز القائمين. ولا أعتقد أن ثورات الربيع العربي الراهنة قادرة على نقض فكرة التنوير بمعناها التاريخي الأوسع، هذا لو أرادت، فهي أيضاً تقول بالإصلاح والديمقراطية والتجديد والحرية والكرامة والنهضة والدستور وما إليه. وتريد، إن استطاعت، الاستجابة إلى رغبة دفينة عميقة وشبه جارفة في فاعليتها لدى هذه الشعوب كلها لتجاوز القصور المقيم في مجتمعاتها والتغلب على العجز الذي تشعر به دوماً في أعماقها. تبقى شروط واحتمالات النجاح أو الاخفاق في ذلك كله، مسألة أخرى.
أخيراً، أهم ما في العلمانية والديمقراطية هو طاقتهما الاستيعابية، بخاصة في المجتمعات المتعددة والمتنوعة، الإثنيات والأعراق والأديان والمذاهب والملل والنحل واللغات واللهجات… الخ. بالإضافة إلى مقدرة هذه الطاقة الاستيعابية على توفير مناخ جيد وإيجابي لاستتباب السلم الأهلي، ليس قهراً وبالقوة العارية، وعلى توفير آليات مجرّبة جيداً (لدى الكثير من البلدان والشعوب والمجتمعات والثقافات الراهنة) لتداول السلطة سلمياً على أوسع نطاق في المجتمع. أضف إلى ذلك أن من ميزات العلمانية والديمقراطية أيضاً أنهما توفران أرضية محايدة لتلتقي عليها المذاهب والعقائد الدينية المتنافرة والاقصائية بطبيعتها، وبحيث تتمكن من التعامل مع الفضاء العام والشأن الوطني والساحة السياسية الجامعة استناداً إلى قواسم مشتركة عظمى وتوافقات طوعية حرة يستحيل على أي من هذه المذاهب والعقائد توفيره بنفسه أو لوحده. وأنا أخاف من عبارات مثل «علمانية بمضامين جديدة» و«ديمقراطية متلائمة مع قيمنا وتراثنا»، وما إلى ذلك من تحايل على العلمانية والديمقراطية، برعت فيه أنظمة الاستبداد في كل مكان من أجل تجميل استبدادها وتأبيده.
بالنسبة لمسألة حاجتنا إلى علمانية بمضامين جديدة، فالمضمون الجديد الذي أسمع به الآن يتلخص ،على ما يبدو، بإحلال فكرة «مدنية الدولة» في بلدان مثل العراق وسوريا ومصر، محل علمانيتها الناقصة أصلاً. في التحليل الأخير، هذه ليست سوى عبارة مهذبة للكلام عن العلمانية في الدول المذكورة. هذا في الشكل، أما في المضمون: معروف أن أحد مضامين العلمانية يمنع منعاً باتاً، على سبيل المثال، أن يكون المواطن المسيحي العراقي أو السوري أو المصري ذمياً. هل توجد أية مضامين جديدة يمكن إدخالها على العلمانية كما نعرفها، بحيث تعالج مضمونها الأول المانع هذا بشكل آخر أو مختلف، أو بحيث تؤكده أو ربما تلغيه وتحل محله؟ إذا أردنا المواطنة والمساواة حقاً، فلا بد من العلمانية بمضامينها المعروفة، وإن جاءت تحت أسماء أخرى.
كذلك تعني العلمانية في عراق اليوم، إبعاد الشرع الإسلامي بصيغته الشيعية الراهنة (ولاية الفقيه) والشرع الإسلامي بصيغته السنية الحالية (الحاكمية)، إبعادهما عن السلطة وعن الدولة وأجهزتها وعدم السماح لأي منهما بالسيطرة على الحياة العامة للبلد ومرافقها، تجنباً لحرب أهلية مرجحة، ومنعاً لحرب طائفية مجربة.
أسأل الآن: هل هناك مضامين جديدة يمكن إدخالها على معنى العلمانية في العراق اليوم، قادرة على معالجة هذه المشكلة بصورة مختلفة أو على إخراج البلد من المأزق الخطير الذي يهدده؟ بعبارة أخرى، إذا أردنا للعراق الحفاظ على نفسه وعلى سلمه الاجتماعي والأهلي، لا بد من العلمانية بالمعنى المذكور أعلاه مهما كانت التسميات والمصطلحات.

MajedK @288 said,

“Zoozoo
They are criminals,such as Assad, I frankly love to see Assad cut to pieces and fed to the dogs,he killed over100,000 syrian.”

I disagree. Dogs deserve better treatment than feeding on noncleansable ‘najass’.

Burn the idiot then pulverize the ash and then burn again over and over. Make sure the temperature reaches around 2000 C.

#300 Gufran

The rebels are stuck in the North because they are depending exclusively on Turkey for just everything, food, fuel, money electricity, medical, shelter and weapons.

The rebels tried to deal twice with Damascus and they failed because the population of the large cities rejects them and offer them no support. In addition Jordan and Lebanon are becoming tougher on movement. Iraq is still porous and the rebels are getting some military help from there, but the uprising in Iraq is encouraging the islamists fighters to move back to Iraq which is much less risky and the stake are higher.

The moment there will be a political solution, Turkey will dump the rebels in the North. It will fall like a ripe apple.

A new genre on SC: Observer’s bedtime novel.

Look at this,

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/11/259877.html

20% of the members of consultative assmebly in KSA are now women!!

لاك ولي….ي على آمتي again for Syria al-Assad and its she-male Buthaina!

Four men held by cops probing Syria terror fears

FOUR men have been arrested by detectives investigating travel to Syria in support of alleged terrorist activity.

A 33-year-old man was arrested at Gatwick airport yesterday afternoon as he attempted to take a flight out of UK, a statement from the Metropolitan Police (MPS) said.

And early today three other men — an 18-year-old, a 31-year-old and a 22-year-old — were arrested at separate addresses in east London.

A spokesman said: “They are all in custody at a south London police station where they will be interviewed by officers from the MPS’s counter-terrorism command.”

Searches are continuing at three residential addresses in east London.

In November Jubayer Chowdhury, 24, was arrested by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command at Heathrow Airport after arriving on a flight from Bahrain and is now facing charges in connection with the alleged plot.

Shajul Islam, 26, a trainee NHS doctor, who studied at St Bartholomew’s and a University of London Hospital, is also accused of being part of an extremist group which held John Cantlie, who worked for various newspapers including The Sunday Times, and Jeroen Oerlemans for around a week in the war-torn state.

Islam, from Stratford, east London, was arrested at Heathrow in October as he arrived back in the UK with his wife and one-year-old daughter on a flight from Egypt.

He is accused of being a doctor for the jihadi group which kidnapped the journalists and held them at a camp in Syria.

Islam is in custody pending a trial later this year.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4736931/Four-men-held-over-cops-probing-Syria-terror-fears.html#ixzz2HgsQZgLh

__________________________________________________________________

When Syria arrests terrorists everyone on here starts whinging & crying. The UK does the same: silence!

No wonder the West has been so reluctant to arm the soonite insurgents; as the majority of them pose a clear & present danger to the West!

Makes sense to me:

Analysis

Jonathan Marcus
BBC defence & diplomatic correspondent

The loss of the air base at Taftanaz would represent a serious psychological blow to government forces.

It is impossible to know at this stage how many helicopters were destroyed in the fighting for the base and how many may have got away. The most important material impact upon government operations will be the loss of the base as a logistical supply centre.

Many roads have been cut by the rebels or are impassable to government forces and a considerable amount of re-supply is carried out by air. The fall of the base will seriously hamper such operations.

Taftanaz is home to two squadrons of Mil-8/17 Hip transport helicopters. These have also been used during the fighting as improvised ground-attack aircraft to drop barrel bombs over built-up areas.

President Assad’s forces in the north are very much on the defensive and it is by no means clear that they have the capacity to recapture such installations, which often, in the past, have been quickly re-taken.

source

291 SAMI

“I’m sure many people in the US care about what is happening in Syria”

No, not many. In the churches there are prayers being said for the Christians you fine Syrians are killing and raping and forcing from their homes. But outside the churches, no one is talking up Syria.

You only have yourselves to blame. Over the past five decades, you made your country as forbidding and unfriendly as North Korea. So Americans wisely avoided you and instead visited Egypt and Israel.

jenanmoussa
Nothing confirmed MT @hhassan140 AJA reports ambush on way 2 Presidential Palace probably killing Russian, Iran aides

http://yallasouriya.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/jenanmoussa-nothing-confirmed-mt-hhassan140-aja-reports-ambush/

Comment:

If true it could lead to a quickening of Russian and/or Iranian exit from Syria.

@jenanmoussa and @hhassan140 are two terrorist supporters. She was active in Libya and he’s in UAE with his masters. Yawn.

311. BADR

“President Assad’s forces in the north are very much on the defensive and it is by no means clear that they have the capacity to recapture such installations.”

Not to worry, baddie. Mossie will explain the counter-attack scenario in detail. The SAA is fine and up-to-strength in every manner. Bashar is winning and it’s only a matter of time before these rats scurry back into their holes never to be seen again.

I also have it on good report that the 12th Imam was sighted on the Lower East Side buying a lamb kebab from a street vendor.

Mossie’s right about jenanmoussa and hhassan140. Jenanmoussa is a trained Israeli agent with an expertise in linguistics and hhassan140 is a male nurse at an al Qaeda hospital/safehouse.

New on the “base liberation” (LOL).

DAMASCUS: Yabroud in the Qalamoun Mountains northwest of Damascus, we can confirm the death of rat-leader Shaheer Barakat along with the following runts from the same litter:

Ali Ahmad Baroudy
Jihad Qawasima (Jordanian)
Dawood Ali Doustom

At Al-Hujjeira, over 50 rodents were swept away by the SAA. Here are some of them:

Maher Mahmoud Al-Jundi
Saher Muhammad Khatib
Riad Salem Madbouh
Nasser Abdel-Hamid Al-Asmar
Mut’ib Kheireddine Al-Dhalim
Adnan Ali Farran

SAA also killed two rats in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad

HOMS: At Kafr Laha, the microbe Abdallah Abdel-Wahed was dispatched along with 8 of his henchmen.

At Al-Qusayr, we have a list of 32 dead rodents. Their leader Salah Ali Kababji was killed trying to escape, leaving his rats to die while fighting for absolutely nothing.

At Al-Khalidiyya, a suburb of Homs, 12 terrorists were sent to Hell.

At Taldo, SAA finished up mopping operations to the adulation of the inhabitants. Monzer says 21 savages were killed there with the majority escaping to the north.

ALEPPO: Everybody is watching the irrelevant maintenance airbase of Taftanaz which remains in SAA hands despite lying by SOHR and the LCC (a non-existent and non-local, Beirut based cabal of professional fabricators).

At Khan Touman, Ein Daqla and Mennagh Airbase (another maintenance facility far from the Zionist border), the following hog entrails were sent to the ovens of Erebus:

Muhammad Abdul-Rahman Alwan
Deeb Abu-Zaid
Taher Anas Abboud
Muhannad Ali-Ahmad Zarnaq
Muhammad Ibrahim Musallam

Odd, this tweep says Syrian Perspective is in the UK. Maybe it is everywhere? 😉

jim mc donald ‏@jimmcdoo
Here’s a great link on a site called #Syria Perspective. Keep updated. http://syrianperspective.blogspot.co.uk/

Idiots in Kafaranbel ask British to “live up to your history” except the history of the British is that of the British Empire and colonialism. Stupid Salafists should have asked the al-Nusra rats not to bomb their schools so they would not miss the history lesson.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p7x7LhyuAGU/UPBeh9YrhFI/AAAAAAAAEjY/SODZFOXxR2U/s1600/hicham.JPG

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE RATS

Insight: Aleppo misery eats at Syrian rebel support
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/08/us-syria-crisis-rebels-idUSBRE9070VV20130108

(Reuters) – At a crowded market stall in Syria, a middle-aged couple, well dressed, shuffle over to press a folded note, furtively, into the hand of a foreign reporter.

It is the kind of silent cry for help against a reign of fear that has been familiar to journalists visiting Syria over the past two years. Only this is not the Damascus of President Bashar al-Assad but rebel-held Aleppo; the note laments misrule under the revolution and hopes Assad can defeat its “terrorism”.

“We used to live in peace and security until this malicious revolution reached us and the Free Syrian Army started taking bread by force,” the unidentified couple wrote. “We ask God to help the regime fight the Free Syrian Army and terrorism – we are with the sovereignty of President Bashar al-Assad forever.”

CONT …. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/08/us-syria-crisis-rebels-idUSBRE9070VV20130108 …

The John Kerry effect…

Kerry’s words on Assad certain to draw scrutiny
By DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press
Friday, January 11, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John Kerry has held up Syria as a country that could bring peace and stability to the Mideast and predicted that the now-disgraced government of President Bashar Assad would pursue a legitimate relationship with the United States. Those assertions are certain to draw scrutiny at Kerry’s confirmation hearing to be secretary of state as Assad’s brutal crackdown has plunged his country civil war.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/article/Kerry-s-words-on-Assad-certain-to-draw-scrutiny-4186708.php#ixzz2HhCK3E75

No breakthrough after US-Russia-Librahimi meeting:
اعلن الموفد الدولي والعربي الى سوريا الاخضر الابراهيمي اليوم الجمعة في ختام مباحثات مع ممثلين عن روسيا والولايات المتحدة ان “لا حل عسكريا” في سوريا.
وقال الابراهيمي في ختام اجتماع مع مساعد وزيرة الخارجية الاميركية ويليام بيرنز ونائب وزير الخارجية الروسي ميخائيل بوغدانوف في جنيف “شددنا مجددا انه من وجهة نظرنا لا حل عسكريا للنزاع”.
واكد الابراهيمي ان المحادثات الأميركية الروسية بشأن سوريا انتهت ولم يذكر شيئ عن اتفاق لكنه قال ان كل الأطراف تؤكد الحاجة لحل سياسي لا عسكري للأزمة السورية.
Blood shed continues until concerned parties start to feel the pain,then a political agreement may be in reach. If many of you failed to notice the regular ups and downs in the conflict in terms of who wins and who loses,that is because you are occupied by a dream that your side will emerge victorious but your limited vision prevents you from seeing that we have already lost,all of us.

abc news:

scientists have told U.S. officials that the Sarin the Syrians mixed in early December can only remain viable for 60 days.

Btw, how could I forget…

Welcome back Omen. 🙂

322. OMEN

“scientists have told U.S. officials that the Sarin the Syrians mixed in early December can only remain viable for 60 days”

So it’s use it or lose it, eh? The drop dead date (no pun intended) would be in early February…

318. revenire

It’s certainly necessary that Kafranbel the Cartoonist reminds the world that what is happening in Syria is ‘a revolution’
They must work hard as no one sane can believe that this mess is a Syrian revolution, when the revolutionists are armed and paid by Qatar and KSA, their headquarters is in Turkey and Cairo and Al Qaeeda terrorists with foreign jihadists are directing military operations that destroy the country infrastructure and kills Syrians, while the expats Syrian Coalition is meeting with Western powers on the Italian riviera

Even thousands of funny cartoons may not be sufficient to convince themselves.

317. MOSSIE

“Odd, this tweep says Syrian Perspective is in the UK.”

It’s tweet, you unconscionable cunt…

” King Abdullah may yet regret the day he called on President Bashar to leave office, helping pave the way for the Islamists at his gates.”

Jordan’s Syria Problem

Nicolas Pelham
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jan/10/jordans-syria-problem/

All of this has posed a complicated challenge for Jordan’s King Abdullah. Although the King has called for Assad to step down, he also hopes to maintain a more secular order in a new Syria and has long been wary of how the conflict is giving his own Muslim Brotherhood growing clout. For years the Brotherhood has been one of the most organized political forces in the kingdom. And while the movement has remained loyal to the monarchy and worked within the system, its leaders has shown an increasing readiness to challenge royal authority in recent months, as their counterparts in other countries have swept to power. “If the Middle East is going to be run by the Brotherhood, we’re all screwed, and you can kiss moderate Islam goodbye,” a senior government official recently told me.

In an attempt to prevent Syria from turning Islamist, Abdullah has turned to Western powers for help. Citing concern that Syria’s chemical weapons’ stockpiles could fall into the wrong hands, he has welcomed more than a hundred American, British, and French military advisers into Jordan to address this menace, as well as deal with the influx of refugees and help prevent a spillover of the conflict itself. Meanwhile, Jordanian officials have strongly backed Western efforts to replace the Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council with a mixed-bag opposition that is inclusive of Alawites and other minorities. Amman has opened its doors to non-Islamist defectors, hosting soldiers, technocrats, and former senior Baathists, including Assad’s former prime minister, Riad Hijab, who defected last August.

much more to read…..

(never trust thugs with guns)
(Reuters) – The killing of a senior Islamist rebel commander near Syria’s border with Turkey could indicate a turf war between armed groups that will hamper their struggle to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, sources told Reuters.
Thaer al-Waqqas, northern commander of al-Farouq Brigades, one of Syria’s largest rebel groups, was shot dead at a rebel-held position in the town of Sermin, a few kilometres from Turkey, early on Wednesday morning, rebel sources said.
Al-Waqqas, they said, had been suspected of involvement in the killing four months ago of Firas al-Absi, a main jihadist leader in al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, which Washington dubbed a terrorist organisation in December.
In addition to chronic supply problems and a shortage of financing and heavy weapons, the lack of unity among Syria’s rebels has held back their efforts to dislodge Assad’s forces.
“The assassins came in a white car, disembarked and riddled Waqqas with bullets as he was at a food supply depot,” one of the rebels said.
He said suspicion immediately turned on Nusra.
“Absi’s brother is a commander in (the city of) Homs. He vowed revenge for Firas, and it seems that he has carried out his promise,” the rebel said.
“Farouq is in a period of mourning now. But it seems a matter of time before the clashes with Nusra erupt in Bab al-Hawa,” he added, referring to the rebel-held border crossing with Turkey where Absi was killed.

Soon the same in Syria?

France Sends Troops to Mali to Help Counter Islamist Advance

By ADAM NOSSITER and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: January 11, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/africa/mali-islamist-rebels-france.html?_r=0

BAMAKO, Mali — France sent armed forces into Mali on Friday, answering an urgent plea from the government of its former colony to help blunt a sudden and aggressive advance into the center of the country by Islamist extremist militants who have been in control of the north for much of the past year.

Syrian military victory ended nine days of fierce fighting with the environment in an Islamic madrassa Darayya large group of foreign fighters. Tonight, on the first floor of the building managed to break four soldiers led by a lieutenant. Behind them eight fighters under the command of Captain took the second floor. Then, surrounded by rebels retreated to the basement. When entered the building core strength, they are out of the narrow, five-centimeter gaps opened fire on a foot soldier, finishing off the wounded and fallen headshots. Loss of 8 fighters determined the fate of more than 90 terrorists “Front Al Nusra” in the basement, the commander of the Saudi and his adult son – al-Qaeda militants. More than 90 bodies of terrorists who refused to give up several flights today taken madrassa Brigade MOE Syria.
http://anna-news.info/node/9516

@326 guess at Salafist school they left out Twitter?

Tweep
A “tweep” is a Twitter user who is a rookie or a novice by virtue of their low number of tweets. It is also someone on the bottom of the Twitter hierarchy. The opposite of “tweep” is “twitterian.”

“Twitterian” is purely a merit-based term that describes an individual with a high number of tweets and is positively charged.

The term “tweep” is occasionally a negatively charged term, as it implies low merit as determined by number of tweets. There is widespread disagreement on whether or not the amount of time than an individual has had a Twitter account should be taken into consideration when determining if an individual is a “tweep.”

There are those who believe that they should not be considered “tweeps” despite their low number of tweets because they have had a Twitter account for a long time. There are those who believe that the date of an individual’s first tweet has no bearing on that individual’s status as a “tweep.”

An individual with both a long standing Twitter account and a high number of tweets is occasionally referred to as an “elitist.”
You are a tweep not a twitterian.

I have had my Twitter for exactly one month. Started as a #tweep, became a #Twitterian, reached the #500tweetsclub, and became a #tweetingmachine.

I am not an elitist. I am not a #tweep. I am the voice of reason. We can all coexist peacefully. #IAmATwitterian

Ibrahimi’s failure and his direct attack on Bashar Al Assad have made him irrelevant as a mediator.
Was it intentional as he prefers to withdraw from this mission that he qualified earlier as ‘impossible’

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2013/0111/Fate-of-Syria-s-Assad-complicates-international-peace-efforts

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fate has stalled the international community’s attempts to agree on a peace plan to end nearly two years of violence in Syria.

United Nations special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi met today in Geneva with US and Russian representatives to discuss political transition in Syria. But with the United States and the Syrian opposition insisting that Mr. Assad not be a part of the next government, and Russia insisting that only the Syrian people can make that call, today’s talks seem likely – like those before them – to hit an impasse.

The Syrian government compounded Mr. Brahimi’s difficulties yesterday, saying that he was “flagrantly biased” after he implied in public comments that Assad would have to step down and not be a part of any future government, Reuters reports.

“In Syria…what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long,” Brahimi told the BBC, referring to Assad, who inherited his post from his father Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in 1970 and ruled for 30 years.

“President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspiration of his people rather than resisting it,” the veteran Algerian diplomat said, hinting the Syrian leader should go.

The Foreign Ministry in Damascus said it was very surprised at Brahimi’s comments, which showed “he is flagrantly biased for those who are conspiring against Syria and its people”.

…

Syria’s al-Watan newspaper said Brahimi had removed his “mask of impartiality” to reveal his true face as a “a tool for the implementation of the policy of some Western countries”.

Brahimi’s comments were a response to a defiant speech by Assad earlier this week that made clear he had no intention of making any concessions to the Syrian opposition or engaging in meaningful dialogue, as the Monitor’s Dan Murphy noted.

According to The New York Times, the government’s dismissal of Brahimi increases the chances that he could share the same fate as previous envoy Kofi Annan by becoming “sidelined into irrelevance” – although it did not explicitly say it would no longer work with him. Mr. Annan failed to make any substantive progress toward resolving the conflict during his time as mediator.

thanks, uzair. good to see you too.

forgot to post the link for earlier:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/panetta-us-troops-securing-syrias-chemical-weapons-not-an-option-in-hostile-atmosphere/

324. Johannes So it’s use it or lose it, eh?

that was my first thought. but then it occurred to me, if the regime were limited in supply, that might “force” its use. but they are not. the regime is said to have a huge stockpile. they can afford to cook up multiple batches that wind up expiring.

still, a cause for concern.

The SNC, SOC, CCNROF wants a seat at the UN and money

http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/rebels-take-over-syrian-airbase-snc-bids-further-international-recognition

Meanwhile, the Syrian National Coalition demanded in statement late Thursday for “the international community to end all legitimacy of the Assad regime by granting Syria’s seat at the UN and Arab League to the transitional government” being set up by the opposition.

The SNC also asked to be given regime assets frozen as part of international sanctions on the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

While the group was only solidified in November, it was quickly recognized by Arab and Western nations opposed to Assad as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The Moslem Brotherhood phobia growing in the UAE, Kuwait, Jordan and KSA..

Kuwaitis financed Brotherhood members held in UAE: Kuwaiti media

11/01/2013

http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32515

KUWAIT (Reuters) – Islamists held in the United Arab Emirates accused of planning to topple the government were financed by Kuwaiti nationals, Kuwaiti media reported on Friday, lending support to UAE fears of an international plot against its rulers.

The UAE, a major oil exporter, has detained more than 60 Islamists in the past year who it says belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group founded in Egypt in 1928 and which is banned in the Gulf Arab state, and who it accuses of planning to establish an Islamic state and operating an armed wing.

The UAE has repeatedly said that the detainees were receiving financial support from individuals in other Gulf Arab states, but had stopped short of naming those countries.

Several newspapers on Friday quoted Kuwaiti parliamentarians as saying Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber al-Mubarak al-Sabah informed them at a confidential meeting held on Thursday that Kuwaiti nationals had been providing financial support to Muslim Brotherhood members in the UAE.

“Yes, there was financing coming from Kuwait,” Sheikh Jaber told the parliamentarians in the session, according to the Arabic-language daily al-Watan.

Sheikh Jaber gave no further details, al-Watan reported, adding only: “We can’t announce the names before they have been referred to the courts.”

Turkey killed millions of Armenians, and now killing Kurds, Alawites and Shia in Syria and Iraq. Not only Muslim World but NATO Crusaders for whom Turkey is committing Crimes in Syria will Love to see Complete Anhilations and Destruction of Turkey so Justice could take place with Millions of Turkish Victims.”Some 1000 factories in the city of Aleppo have been plundered, and their stolen goods transferred to Turkey with the full knowledge and facilitation of the Turkish government”. “It is an illegal act of aggression that amounts to piracy. It is an act of aggression against the Syrian people’s livelihood,” the ministry added. The ministry charged that Turkey, which backs the armed rebellion against the Damascus government, “is supporting terrorism while providing the conditions to help plunder Syria’s riches.

Russia says it is planning to hold a series of major naval drills off the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean as the US and its allies plan to deploy missiles on Syria’s border.

Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that vessels from the country’s Black Sea and Baltic fleets will take part in the exercises, which are set to be held in the eastern Mediterranean.

According to the ministry, the drill will involve anti-submarine, anti-ship and air defense operations. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had earlier said that the naval exercises would be “the biggest in the history of the country.”

@ Observer

I generally don’t like Marxism but on Syria I agree. This was a revolution of the poor and oppressed against the evil rich. Mind you, there’s a religious element that he underplays in his analysis, but overall the revolution is economic.

Syria is paying for not standing up to its bullies in the past. It will be costly, but now is the time to punish the oppressors.

Tafanatz is down. All of the regime’s positions in the north are imperiled.

What does the liberation of Taftanaz air base tell us about the state and strength of the regime?

What does it tell us about the rebel strength?

Also are regime forces not becoming fatigued and exhausted?

As much as many of us are impatient and would like a victory sooner rather than later (hopefully also thus limiting casualties), eventually the regime will fall.

Rebels can just keep chipping away. The regime will run out of:

– men
– money
– fuel
– territory
– public support
– allies

[…]

First ZOO. Clearly you did not read the article. I posted it in full for it was sent to me in full.
Second Marigoldran. The very important parts of the article to my reading were as follows
1. No one expected the Syrians to revolt and they did
2. No one expected the revolt to withstand the security system put in place
3. The most important message is not the analysis of the driving forces and they are many in this revolution but the fact that this is a revolution that is 60 years overdue. It needed to happen after the Baath party took power by force and created the one party rule and the state of emergency. It needed to be challenged from the outset and repeatedly in 67 and 70 and 73 and 82 and 90 and 2000 and so on.
4. The wall of fear is broken.
5. The article is posted specifically for those like Ghufran who have recognized the evils of the regime but in their fear of what is to come are blind to the legitimacy of the revoution and most importantly to the legitimacy of self defense that was forced on the people by the regime.
6. The article clearly shows that the Syrian people will decide their fate and not Lakhdar or Salihi or Laughvrov or anyone else. If not this round of revoution, then certainly in the next round and for generations to come.

Justice for Hamza one Shabih at a time in front of a tribunal lest someone promot lynching.

The so-called rebels are non-Syrian mercenary AlQaida terrorists formed armed financed as Death Squads in Turkey by the CIA-NED-NATO,SaudiQatar coalition to have the population flee the country, seize and privatize its resources (mainly oil and gaz) and its public bank

I don’t completely agree. If the regime had done a better job of distributing wealth and making sure the poor had a share of the economic pie, Syrians would have put up with the dictatorship.

It was the combination of economic neglect, totalitarianism, corruption, and regime stupidity that led to the war. But the most important trait is economic neglect because there are many governments that are totalitarian or authoritarian but survive because the government at least makes sure the people have somewhat of an economic future.

As long as people have well-paying jobs, they won’t protest on the streets.

**********************************************

You could say the revolution was 60 years over-due, and I agree. But still, the revolution wouldn’t have happened without the poor and the under/un-employed protesting in the streets.

Note how even Ghufran is slowly coming around to our position: that the regime is evil and cannot be negotiated with. The fence-sitters will not sit on the fence forever. Since the regime is indefensible, eventually they’ll come down on the side of the rebels.

Now the Obama clowns and hypocrites sleep or look the other way, while Republicans can handle just one more war against Syria.
The idea that the USA now openly supports Al Qeada, arms and funds them should be the biggest scandal in US history……….

Syria, Acts of Sabotage: Factories Robbed in Aleppo with Ankara’s Support
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-acts-of-sabotage-factories-robbed-in-aleppo-with-ankaras-support/5318607
Why nobody speaks about that? is that fact is not valuable?
Turkish dogs dismantled mills and sent them to Turkey and stole everything that was in wheat granaries and send to Turkey too!

What robbery?

Who did the looters rob from? The factory owners have fled and Syria no longer has a government. So when people go to a factory and take things, who are they robbing from?

I had posted before that were the father still alive the revolution may not have happened for the following reaosns
1. The father understood the need to broaden the base of support and the Baath did help at the beginning many poor people advance their lot and then proceed to get their children some measure of hope. It bought time and allowed for stability and slow progress.
2. The father would never have allowed Atef Najib to treat the people of Deraa the way he did he would have hanged him in public for his twin sins of creating a problem and daring to do something without permission.
3. The seeds of dicatorships were sown long time ago and if there were reforms there would have been either a delay of the revolution or a a gradual progress that would have prevented an outright revolt.
4. The combined inapptitude of the regime with its brutality and its mind set of Syria as a personal fiefdom is the number one reason people have revolted.
5. If the current president had truly followed through on the reforms in 2001 he would have been voted for office more than once.
6. I wrote on this blog that his challenge was to be the Juan Carlos of Syria not the Kim Jong Il of NK. Alas he chose the later.

Cheers

@ Observer

I agree.

Cheers too.

Zoo,

You ignored my last post.

Nothing to defend the regime not negotiating the release of Alawi officers while releasing the Iranians Revolutionsry Guards to kiss Iran’s hand?

No defense possible, I. Know… What could be said?

We must admit that the best thing that happened to the Syrian Revolution is the rise of our Iraqi brothers who currently are full participants in the great Syrian Revolution.

We also should not forget to acknowledge the central role played by the good Nusra fighters who accomplished most of the great achievements in causing humiliating defeats to the criminal thuggocracy.

But HBJ is always a superstar whenever he speaks or acts. We cannot but applaude HBJ’s latest statement asserting that the search for political solution must not go on forever. So much for the idiocy of the Zoo due to his endless and insatiable desire to project the image of an expert. In Zoos idiocy knows no bounds and very much at home.

We look forward to see Qatari F15s flying over Syria and landing in Incirlic while pounding criminal thug on their way.

“We feel like everyone has abandoned us”

Abou Firas (not his real name) was a shopkeeper in Deraa, the southwestern Syrian city and starting point of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. He has lived at Zaatari with ten members of his family since the end of August.

“Members of the Syrian opposition don’t answer my calls anymore”

We have received help from the NGOs here, from the HCR and the Jordanian government – that’s undeniable. The civil defense organisation [Editor’s note: equivalent to rescue workers and firefighters] used shovels to dig a way out for the water, so it doesn’t stay here and cause disease. The NGOs have also provided gas heaters. But their help, as precious as it is, is not enough, given how many of us there are. What’s more, the cold snap could cause people to have breathing problems, and I doubt the hospitals we have here, which work out of caravans, will be able to look after all the people who could fall ill.

I’ve been able to get hold of phone numbers of some members of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces [the new united front of the Syrian opposition] who are in Jordan. I called them a few days ago. At the start, they got back to me, but they don’t answer my calls anymore. We feel like everyone has abandoned us.

http://observers.france24.com/comment/reply/501958

“Who did the looters rob from? The factory owners have fled and Syria no longer has a government. So when people go to a factory and take things, who are they robbing from?”

Syria.

ANN is on strike until she receives an autographed poster from the House of Assad. Her handlers are refusing to take her calls or respond to her increasingly deranged “PAY ME” emails, but hoping she understands that REVENIRE is a better example of volunteerism during the final days.

In the meantime, perhaps she will accept the war pornography posted by Georges at #73? It depicts the Mighty SAA and their rocket-propelled missiles … since we know she understands both Arabic and the Syrian vernacular, the message of the video will be deeply soothing to her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2V82w53gRo

Deeply soothing. Especially soothing.

Come back, ANN, battle it out with REVENIRE for the title of SC’s most demented!

Assuming that the reports of the factories being sold is true.
Aleppo middle and upper class sided with the regime, now that they lost and the regime have sold them out,they are crying foul. Well you lost and the winner get the spoils,
When Bab Amer was being shelled, they were enjoying life to the fullest and making extra money on the side
They sided with the loser side and they deserve what came to them

“Syrian” not just the middle- upper-classes but most of Aleppo.

Read on:

“PARASITES”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/08/us-syria-crisis-rebels-idUSBRE9070VV20130108

Rebel commanders interviewed in and around Aleppo in the past two weeks acknowledged problems within the FSA – an army in name only, made up of brigades competing for recognition and resources. But they laid much of the blame on “bad apples” and opportunists and said steps are being taken to put things right.

“There has been a lot of corruption in the Free Syrian Army’s battalions – stealing, oppressing the people – because there are parasites that have entered the Free Syrian Army,” said Abu Ahmed, an engineer who heads a 35-man unit of the Tawheed Brigade, reckoned to be the largest in Aleppo province.

Abu Ahmed, who comes from a small town on the Turkish border and like many in Syria would be identified only by the familiar form of his name, estimated that most people in Aleppo, a city of over two million, were lukewarm at best to a 21-month-old uprising that is dominated by the Sunni Muslim rural poor.

“They don’t have a revolutionary mindset,” he said, putting support for Assad at 70 percent among an urban population that includes many ethnic Kurds, Christians and members of Assad’s Alawite minority. But he also acknowledged that looting and other abuses had cost the incoming rebels much initial goodwill.

“The Free Syrian Army has lost its popular support,” said Abu Ahmed, who said the Tawheed Brigade was now diversifying from fighting to talking on civic roles, including efforts to restore electricity supplies and deal with bread shortages. His own wife was setting up a school after months without classes.

Hunger and insecurity are key themes wherever Aleppines gather this winter. Outside a busy bakery in one rebel-held neighborhood men complained of having to stand in line for hours in the hope of bread, and of feeling the need to arm themselves for their own protection on the streets of the city.

Schools are being stripped of desks and chairs for firewood.

Most of the tweeps posted below were/are fake revolution supporters until they got a real taste of the beheadings, rapes, theft, etc. directly in the person of Edward Dark writing directly from Aleppo. They are NOT Assad supporters by any stretch of the imagination. Now factor in that Edward Dark is in Aleppo (most of the pro-terrorist posters here are 1.) not even Syrian 2.) not in Syria).

It is safe to say Edward is not going to be getting married to the new “Gay Girl in Damascus” Amal Hanano.

🙂

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
@MayorKhairullah FSA is a misnomer, an umbrella term used to describe any armed anti-regime militia. how to separate the good from the bad?

Mayor K العمدة ‏@MayorKhairullah
@edwardedark my opinion is not very popular but I think they need to be exposed and called out on their crimes

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
@MayorKhairullah yes, its what me and several other have been trying to do, but we’re attacked and called traitors by the pro-rev crowd

BSyria ‏@BSyria
@edwardedark Except for minor pronouncements, everything you said abt the “fsa” was eventually verified by independent media.

freesyria74 ‏@freesyria74
@BSyria I think we should apologize to @edwardedark and give him a big twitter hug 🙂

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
@freesyria74 thx, but I don’t need hugs or apologies. I need people to speak about about crimes, and not try to cover anything up @BSyria

From yesterday’s Today’s Zaman, one of Turkey’s newspapers of record:

Al-Khatib, a former Damascus preacher, also argued that the Syrian regime has attempted to instigate a war between Turkey and Iran by firing shells into Turkish territory several times during the Syrian conflict but that Turkey avoided falling into that trap by acting with “restraint and common sense.”

A mortar bomb fired from Syria killed five Turks in a border town in October, following which Turkey retaliated by hitting Syrian military targets. Turkey also hit Syrian targets in response to what the Syrian government said were stray shells and bullets that landed on the Turkish side of the border on several occasions.

“You know, wars do not break out all of a sudden. First, there are small-scale clashes, which then grow in scope. And then international actors intervene. This was the scenario Assad envisaged. He thought he would be the sinless angel at the end. He was not going to care even if the two sides [Turkey and Iran] were burnt down [in a war],” said al-Khatib.

Al-Khatib said the Iranian regime supports Assad in his strategy and claimed that Tehran is planning a “gradual military intervention in the region” using the Syrian crisis as an excuse.

The opposition leader also dismissed a peace proposal Assad offered in a recent speech and added that his coalition was in touch with some Alawites who say “we suffer from Assad’s oppression as much as you do,” although he noted these Alawites do not represent the entire community.

“Some of them are going through hardships that [other] Syrians are going through. But it does not mean that some others of them are not involved in the murders committed by the regime,” he said of Alawites.

The Edward Dark whom REVENIRE refers to has this on his Twitter page:

activist working for a free democratic Syria. No to war. No to extremists. Donate for displaced families in Aleppo here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=F8NQAKYT2Z3VJ …
Syria

I respect his opinion, and am one of those who does not attempt to soft-pedal his perceptions nor over-exaggerate his new supposed “Royalist” identity. I correspond with him, and I take my place with whose who do not demonize him for his honest opinions.

Firmly for a change in the rule of the Assad dynasty, cognizant of the terrible mistakes made in the attempted conquest of Aleppo, and not to be discounted: that is my opinion of Edward Dark. No one can be silenced, and all must speak in their own name (I mean in their own chosen name).

Even one of Edward’s most persistent critics, SC’s Amjad/Aboud, incorporates Edward’s critique / anguish over the missteps and criminal misbehaviour of the supposed ‘liberators’ of Aleppo.

Edward is a son of Syria, as is Amjad. It is hard to understand if REVENIRE is a son of Syria, since he (or she) does not choose to let us know. I respect his or her reticence. Fear is in the air, in the bones, and in the mind.

If REVENIRE is indeed a son of Syria, then of course we must take his opinions into account. For he and they will be part of the post-war struggle to build their country.

I will ask REVENIRE, seriously, what he thinks of these four daughters of Syria:

http://t.co/8ahIi2Jd

PS: it was Twitter Amjad’s advice that helped me understand why ZOO was right and I was wrong about enquiring about IDs.

PPS: it is neither here nor there that REVENIRE cites Twitter posts by other folks. He or she will not cite his own Twitter posts.

That tells me more about REVENIRE as a son of Syria than any other thing he or she will post here …

This is for the self-styled deluded pundit @278 (Ewe @ the Zoo) who is busy at the yarn spinning an HBJ last minute rescue for idol idiot,

http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/8310d4a1-cad0-4e98-8494-59d8242bc6e4?GoogleStatID=9

HBJ wants Arab peace keeping force in Syria.

Again, looking forward to see Qatari F15s flying over Syria and landing in Incirlic while pounding criminal thug on the way.

Further to REVENIRE’s attempt to occlude the words and intent of Edward Dark. The following Tweet was posted 15 minutes ago. The link is https://twitter.com/edwardedark/status/289878879680749568

@ghettonawari I never turned my back on the revolution. I rejected violent armed struggle and the armed militias, which I still do @BSyria

How REVENIRE squares that with his propaganda, I have no idea, and I be neither does he or she …

Part of the tragedy of Syria.

PS — I rarely cite Twitter, and only do so here under provocation by the mysterious REVENIRE. On the one hand he/she denounces Twitter as a pit of misinformation, on the other hand she/he cuts and pasts long extracts.

I do not understand this, and will not attempt an explanation of this hypocrisy. Perhaps ANN will share her pay with REVENIRE at the next SEA meeting.

Or not.

THIS IS THE ONLY TRUTH OF THE ‘REVOLUTION’ AND WHY ASSAD IS WINNING ALL OVER SYRIA

ANYONE CAN GO BACK ON DARK’S TL AND SEE HE WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHAMPIONS OF THE FSA TERRORISTS

WHEN HE STARTED TO TELL THE TRUTH HIS ‘FRIENDS’ STARTED TO SAY HE WAS WORKING FOR ASSAD

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
when the rebels first entered Aleppo, people were joyful & hopeful. they’d come to protect them from the regime, we were sorely dissapointed

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
apparently, the rebels who entered Aleppo were more interested in looting, kidnapping & turf wars than they were with liberating the people

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
as time dragged on rebel crimes increased, a desperate population began to see their salvation in disciplined extremist Islamist groups

edward dark ‏@edwardedark
@ghettonawari if it wasn’t for armed struggle we would still have a peaceful mass uprising instead of 10000s dead & destroyed cities @BSyria

ANYONE CAN GO BACK ON DARK’S TL AND SEE HE WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHAMPIONS OF THE FSA TERRORISTS

Clearly insane and incorrect, disproved by the very posts that REVENIRE cites in support. This is a mad post. Mad. Manic. Now we know why REVENIRE refers to his (non-Syrian) psychiatrist.

What is it that MARIGOLDRAN suggests we append to every REVENIRE response?

A quote from an unreliable source is pertinent:

“There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip …”

REVENIRE, it is time for a bib, dude/dudette.

#357 wizi

“HBJ wants Arab peace keeping force in Syria.”

Thats’s a flip!

HBJ has finally realized that the FSA, as he knew it, is finished and cannot even protect itself, least civilians.

When is Mezza military airport turn?  I was born and raised there.  I played Dahal with neighbors there.  I want my area to be liberated.   

In recent months the rebels have systematically targeted airbases across the country in an attempt to choke off the government’s key military advantage: air power. Taftanaz has been used to launch repeated helicopter strikes against opposition strongholds in nearby Aleppo, Syria’s divided northern city, and elsewhere.

Syrian rebels take control of key Assad airbase
Friday 11 January 2013 11.44 EST

Fighters had laid siege to the Taftanaz base near the town of Idlib for months. After seizing several buildings on Wednesday they stormed the sprawling complex on Friday morning. “As of now, the rebels are in full control of the airbase,” Idlib-based activist Mohammad Kanaan said.

A video from the scene shows jubilant rebels ripping down a large poster of Assad at the entrance gate. Others wave from the upper story of a barracks. Trucks carry off boxes of ammunition. The bodies of four government soldiers lay sprawled in a muddy pit.

In another video captured Sunni government soldiers claim their Alawite officers fled the base early on Friday, abandoning them. Government forces appear to have removed most of the 60 helicopters stationed at Taftanaz – leaving around 20 that were apparently non-functional.
…
Fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra and other radical Islamist groups spearheaded the Taftanaz attack, punching through when previous attempts had failed. The US claims Jabhat al-Nusra is allied to al-Qaida. The organisation does not deny its al-Qaida links, but is trying to eschew its bloody past in Iraq by engaging in community outreach programmes and avoiding sectarian rhetoric.

The development will alarm western countries, who are increasingly concerned after almost  two years of fighting at the rise of Islamist militias in Syria.
(…)

Poor Edward. He’s truly a man without a country now. He turned his back on his former FSA allies and on the government.

I’ve read his TL for a long time. I have corresponded with him too (no, I am not Jihad Makdissi).

Edward was threatened and treated like a leper by his fellow fake revolutionaries. I pray his life isn’t in danger. There are some awfully angry people out there who would like nothing better than to silence Edward’s voice and I sure don’t mean the government.

There are rumors of Edward receiving death threats. I pray those rumors are false.

It is all there on his TL and everything has been archived.

Panic foreign intervention after the Islamists forces captured North Mali
Will they react the same after the Islamists forces captured Taftanaz?

After ignoring it for the best part of a year, the world has suddenly woken up to the crisis in Mali — and its considered response seems to be: panic.
On Jan. 9, the Islamist forces that captured northern Mali last year resumed their advance south and the next day took a small town about 700 km from the capital, Bamako.
It’s not known whether the Islamists were attempting to go all the way to Bamako and take the entire country.
Until now, they seem to have been content to retain the north, where most of the Malian elements in their ranks are from. But the reaction to the limited Islamist push has been dramatic. Mali’s government begged France to intervene.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/01/11/the-crisis-in-mali-will-french-intervention-stop-the-islamist-advance/#ixzz2HiVvCS5a

The ever reliable Martin Chulov and Luke Harding (tossed out of Russia I do believe) can’t stop themselves from lying: “The US claims Jabhat al-Nusra is allied to al-Qaida. The organisation does not deny its al-Qaida links, but is trying to eschew its bloody past in Iraq by engaging in community outreach programmes and avoiding sectarian rhetoric.”

Jabhat al-Nusra’s version of community outreach is beheading people.

They vote on which person gets beheaded first. It’s all very democratic you see.

Yup. Revenire is an idiot.

Zoo,

What’s this about your earlier comments about Tafanatz? Should we bring those up?

Anything you would like to say?

The West isn’t going to do anything about the Islamists in Syria because they think the regime is worse. They think the regime is worse than Al Qaeda, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

Tafanatz? Yes, by ALL means bring the comments up.

Freedom means speech too. Bring it on.

351. MOSSIE

“Who did the looters loot from? The factory owners fled and there’s no government there. So when people take stuff, who are they robbing from? Syria.”

Okay, they’re robbing from Syria. So in two more years, when Syria is only a bad memory, replaced by twenty or more mini-states and warlord entities (Druzistan, Alawistan, Ismailistan, Kurdistan, etc, etc), do we put the stuff we stole into an escrow account in the unlikely event Syria reappears at some future date and claims it? Or do we do the intelligent thing and sell it to the Chinese at ten cents on the dollar?

Spinning Ewe @361,

It has been proven time and again that donkeys connot play pianos even if you take them from the Zoo to the opera house,

http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2013/01/12/259959.html

What the hell are you talking about in 361? Are you the same idiot who wrote 278?

LOL the posters here are the new government of Syria.

TERRORIST FIELD HOSPITAL DESTROYED
ARMED FORCES HAVE DESTROYED A FIELD HOSPITAL IN “KNASBA” RURAL LATAKIA THAT WAS BEING USED TO HARBOR TERRORISTS AND DOCTORS OF ARAB AND OTHER FOREIGN NATIONALITIES. – M.D
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=472409122794875&id=298382103530912

Yup. Revenire is an idiot.

I think we need a new post especially since this title on Cham Press Economic sections is worth a million words

اقتصاد
بورصة دمشق تتوقع حجم تداول 5 ملايين ليرة يومياً خلال العام الحالي

5 million syrian pounds per day as the volume of exchange of Damascus Stock Exchange hahahahahahahahaha.

Now ZOO is desperate to see French Foreign Legion soldiers finish off Islamists in Mali and coming rushing to defeat the Islamists in Syria.

But oh wait don’t tell me!!!! The brave and glorious SAA was supposed to have dealt them a big blow and now ZOO tells us that HBJ “realizing that the FSA is finished is therefore asking for an Arab Peace Keeping Force”.

So ZOO wants it both ways: FFL soldiers to come after the Islamists and claims that HBJ wants an Arab Peace Keeping Force to make sure that they are not finished by
the FFL and NATO.

Can anyone please undo this Pretzel of a logic for me?

5 million Syrian pounds of exchange per day. Wow that must be something to brag about.

ZOO please continue to post about Turkey and KSA and US and EU and France and Taliban and Queta and Pakistan and Waziristan and compose for us a Wagnerian Opera with an epic of a God who chose to be incarnated in a Batta with short spaced eyes and floppy ears on a giraffe neck talking about the thovereignty of Thyria.

Not only this regime will finish in the dustbin of history but in the dustbin of the most ridiculous and depraved history.

Justice for Hamza one Shabih at a time starting with a nice public fully broadcast trial.

OBSERVER it’s past bedtime for you, get into your kennel.

I saw a billboard today. It read ‘Pest of the Month: House Mice’ and had a al-Nusra rat on it.

The FSA next move is to take Mannagh airport,the same way they took over taftanaz airport,

Scolded by Banky and threatened to be kicked out, Ibrahimi tries to retract what he said: pathetic

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57563623/syria-talks-end-in-geneva-without-solution/

Brahimi took the criticism in stride. “I saw the statement by the Syrian government. They expressed their point of view, but at the same time they said that they are ready to continue cooperating with me,” he said.

He clarified his stance further.

“I said the Syrians are saying 40 years is enough — the Syrians,” he said. “I said the Syrian people are saying that 40 years is enough. And I never said that there will be no place for members of the government. I never said that.”

Yup. Revenire is an idiot.

More evidence of it!

I don’t know, Zoo. Given your recent comments about Tafanatz, which fell to the rebels, your credibility is negative.

You always bash others for making silly statements. Does that apply to you too?

French president confirming what we suspected for a long time:
Once an idiot, always an idiot
قال الرئيس الفرنسي فرنسوا هولاند أمس، إن فرنسا ستقدم «كل الدعم اللازم» للمعارضة السورية شرط «ألا يتمكن الإرهاب من أن يجد مكاناً له وأن يستبعد من كل العملية».
وقال هولاند خلال تقديمه التهاني للهيئة الدبلوماسية، إن «فرنسا ستتحرك في كل الهيئات الدولية لدعم» الائتلاف الوطني السوري «وعلى الأرض لتقديم كل الدعم اللازم له شرط ألا يجد الإرهاب مكاناً له وان يُستبعد من كل العملية».
وأضاف أن «سقوط النظام حتمي، لذلك علينا الاستعداد لما بعد (الرئيس السوري بشار) الأسد مع مطلب ألا يتم تجاهل أي من المجموعات التي تشكل وحدة الشعب السوري، وخصوصاً المسيحيين والعلويين». وأشار هولاند إلى أن فرنسا ستسهل «قدر الإمكان» الانتقال السياسي في سورية. وذكر بأن «فرنسا كانت أول من اعترف بالائتلاف الوطني سلطة شرعية وحيدة تمثل اليوم الشعب السوري»، مؤكداً ان «هذا الائتلاف يتنظم ويتعزز كل يوم».

Faisal Alqasem woke up when rebels kidnapped civilians from alswaydaa:
كتب فيصل القاسم على صفحته على موقع التواصل الإجتماعي فايسبوك “قبل أكثر من شهر حدث اشتباك بين افراد من الجيش الحر واللجان الشعبية التابعة للنظام على حاجز بين درعا والسويداء، وسقط ضحايا من الجانبين. ومن بين من سقط للجيش الحر ستة مقاتلين وأسر اثنين من قبل اللجان الشعبية، فقامت إحدى الجماعات المرتبطة بالجيش الحر بخطف أكثر من ثلاثين شخصاً بريئاً من الشارع لا علاقة لهم لا من بعيد ولا من قريب بالنظام، وبعضم يعاني من مرض السرطان والقلب ولديهم اطفال، لا بل إن أحد المخطوفين شاب صغير جداً. ولا احد يعرف مكانهم. هل هذا تصرف ثوري بربكم؟ هل هذا يخدم الثورة والثوار، أم يؤلب عليهم حتى المتعاطفين معهم ويخدم النظام بشكل مباشر؟”.

such odd messaging coming out the white house. via aje:

US says its troops could help secure Syrian weapons if the Assad regime ever agrees to a peaceful transition

Pentagon officials say they have largely ruled out sending in ground troops to secure Syrian chemical weapons under hostile circumstances, but the U.S. could provide forces if the Assad regime ever agrees to a peaceful transition.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it would be almost impossible to prevent the Syrian government from using chemical weapons, so the U.S. must continue warning Syria that using them would be unacceptable.

“we can’t stop you, assad, if you want to use chems.” really? how is this not a green light for the regime to do so? and the US is threatening the regime with ground troops if assad decides to throw in the towel.

the US not capable of taking out the delivery systems used to launch cw? i don’t buy it. turkey acting as our proxy could take them out if we urged them to do so. since when does a military go public to telegraph their supposed weakness? reads more like preemptive a** covering to deflect blame in case regime does decide to launch.

touching scene. crowd of families gather anticipating their loved ones being released from detention:

video

OMEN I hope those people have learned their lesson. They need to be thankful the government is so generous.

More info from the latest release of Syrian prisoners jailed by the regime:
«النظام ناور كثيرا خلال فترة المفاوضات، إلا أنه عاد ورضخ لإملاءات إيران التي فرضت عليه التجاوب مع مطالب الجيش الحر، لكنه بقي على رفضه في ما يتعلق بالإفراج عن بعض الأسماء المهمة، مثل طل الملوحي والمقدم حسين هرموش والمعارض شبلي العيسمي، الذين كان الجيش الحر وضعهم على رأس القائمة، إضافة إلى أسماء معارضة مهمة أخرى
No information yet on dr AA Alkhayyer. 2 prisoners died hours after being released. This was a victory for Iran, the regime can arrest 2,000 Syrians in 2 days, none the big names requested by the FSA were released, the video capturing the first wave of the prisoners released show how cheap human life and dignity of Syrians have become, I do not how anybody can still defend those behind the arrest of tens of thousands of Syrians ,most of whom never had the chance to see a lawyer or getting charged with any crime in court.
Armed rebels in custody were not released, if they were, you would have seen their pics and names all over the net. In summary, Iran probably paid armed thugs to win the release of their citizens in return of releasing 2,000 Syrians who probably should not have been in prison in the first place, my new Tozz goes to the regime:
طز فيكن و بها لنظام تبعكن
ما في اجحش من الرعاع المسلحين الا زبالة النظام

During war lots of people get arrested. That’s life.

Kafranbel

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=473817625987683&set=a.186824541353661.34965.182806365088812&type=1&theater

I understand that he is happy, but someone should tell him that without a pilot an helicopter is quite worthless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb8crEdzQkQ

here is an bedtime story the eyedoc would love:

The eyewitness, Ziad As’sufi reported about the Shabiha in Latakia, which are led by the son of Faw’waz Assad, Assad’s nephew, He calls himself the King of Latakia.
Ziad: “Many Syrians do not know much about the Shabiha. The Shabiha in Latakia include mainly the Assad clan. As the Syrian revolution began practicing the Shabiha pressure on Christians, because they realized that the majority of them stood on the side of the revolution. One of the Christians, his name is JJ, has opened a new store, where he sells women’s things and video films. Suleiman Assad, the son of a nephew of Assad s, Often came to this shop. He bought always some, without paying. Suleiman came one day with his 5 bodyguards. J.J. Suleiman asked if he could let his bodyguards outside because of the customers. Suleiman became angry. He demanded JJ that this is licking his shoes. J.J. made it out of fear.For Suleiman this was not enough. He demanded of him that he should undress naked and lick the floor of the store. J.J. also made that. Bored and laughing Suleiman went to the car with his bodyguards. When he was in the car, he called a man standing in front of the shop who has been watching the whole scene. The man thought he was going to talk to him. When the man stuck his head into the car, Suleiman closed the car door so that the man’s head was trapped in the car. Suleiman and his bodyguards beat him. Ziad went on,: I experienced many horror stories of these Shabiha ”

http://beirutobserver.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88780%3Aassad&catid=39%3Afeatures

365. revenire – speaking of beheadings, noticed this account hadn’t been posted:

The Syrian army killed 143 people across the country yesterday, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said in an e-mailed statement. Fifty unidentified beheaded corpses with signs of torture were recovered behind Tishreen Military Hospital in Damascus, the group said.

Btw, those really dangerous terrorists known as the Damascus brides were released by the eyedoc in the prisoners swap.

Gee, how could the eyedoc let go of those dangerous elements?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=192709934202994&set=a.113104418830213.14709.112510348889620&type=1&theater

Hearing rumors now…

“Breaking: Al-Ibrahimi submits resignation as UN envoy of Syria.”

Good riddance.

Don’t send another UN stooge to Syria.

heartbreaking story of a young orphan

ghufran can i have more information on this?

No information yet on dr AA Alkhayyer

is there a human rights group that has his profile?

Now it is Burlisconi’s turn to speak ” honestly”:
اعتبر رئيس الحكومة الايطالية السابق سيلفيو برلسكوني، أن “ما حدث في ليبيا لم يكن ثورة، بل تدخلاً أرادته فرنسا”.
وأشار برلسكوني في حديث لوكالة “آكي” الإيطالية، إلى ان “ما حدث في ليبيا لم يكن ربيعاً عربياً أو ثورة للشعب، فالرئيس الليبي الاسبق معم القذافي كان محبوباً من قبل مواطنيه”، موضحا ان “الشعب الليبي كان يفتقر إلى الحرية، لكنه كان يحصل على الخبز والسكن مجانا”.
ورأى برلسكوني أن “ما حدث في ليبيا جرى وفق قرار للحكومة الفرنسية بالذهاب إلى هناك والتدخل في نزاع داخلي وتقديمه أمام المجتمع الدولي في إطار ثورة”.
Every time NATO interferes in a country,that country gets worse, it is just bad luck

Tara

I found this on the net:

389. MOSSIE

“Don’t send another stooge”

No problem, Mossie. We’ve got you.

Lego Assad

http://media.theweek.com/img/dir_0081/40891_cartoon_main/dismantling-assad.jpg?167

Omen,
Dr AA Alkhayyer is a medical doctor originally from Latakia, he came from a prominent alawi family. AA was chased by almukhabarat for 11 years, arrested in 1992, then spent 13 years in prison. Politically, he is an ex communist who has socialist secular views. He is now in prison,equally hated by Islamists and Assad thugs. Syria will have no future if people like Alkhayyer are imprisoned or marginalized, he is widely thought off as a potential figure who can bridge the deep alawi-Sunni divide in Syria. Syrians who crossed sectarian lines and swam against the current are very valuable today even if one might disagree with their political views.

thank you, ghufran. troubling to hear even sanctioned opposition aren’t safe. wondered what triggered the arrest. this noted russia & china promised to exert influence to ensure ncb’s safety.

Marigoldran,

I sense inconsistency between these two assertions of yours:

“The sectarian dimension grows with each passing week. The war is NOT completely sectarian yet. But with current trends, it WILL become sectarian.”

and

“…but overall the revolution is economic.”

AJE report on how goods from sunni neighborhoods end up in alawi markets, apparently some say they bought it on the sunni souq.

Taftanaz

cleaning ceremony

FSA has now the newest tankmodel

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=473878412648271&set=a.186824541353661.34965.182806365088812&type=1&theater

Kafranbel

We ask the turkish government to take over the
administration of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=548789245150228&set=a.201716413190848.57037.201686009860555&type=1&theater

Idiot says

THIS IS THE ONLY TRUTH OF THE ‘REVOLUTION’ AND WHY ASSAD IS WINNING ALL OVER SYRIA

Yup, and the baathist-naserite coalition won the 1967 war decisively.

‎المفكر العربي الدكتور عزمي بشارة‎

لا شك أنه قد حصل تآمر استعماري على المنطقة العربية تجلى في اتفاق سايكس بيكو، ووعد بلفور، وإقامة إسرائيل وغيرها. ولكن حماة الواقع الذي تمخض عن هذا التآمر هو الأنظمة العربية التي لم تنجح في تجاوز سايكس بيكو حتى حين حكم الحزب الوحدوي ذاته بلدين عربيين متجاورين.

ولا شك ان الاستعمار راهن على التقسيم الطائفي للمنطقة العريية، وأن الحركات الوطنية العربية المبكرة قد أحبطت هذا الرهان. (وظلت الطائفية قائمة في التقسيم الاجتماعي التقليدي جدا، والأنظمة التي قامت عليه في الجزيرة العربية) أما في الدولة العربية الحديثة فمن فشل في الدمج الاجتماعي عبر التحديث، ثم قام بإحياء الطائفية واستغلالها للحكم هو الأنظمة العربية التي تثور عليها الشعوب. هذه الأنظمة لم تفشل فقط في عملية بناء الأمة المواطنية، ولا فشلت في تحقيق الوحدة العربية كرد على سايكس بيكو فحسب، بل استغلت الهويات الفرعية (الإقليمية والطائفية والقبلية) بشكل واع (ومن دون أن تكون هي ذاتها طائفية) لأغراض تحقيق الولاء السياسي.

إن اتهام الشعوب التي خرجت رافضة لهذا الواقع بالتآمر وبصنع “سايكس-” بيكو جديدة هو لغو مثير للنفور الاشمئزاز، وليس للسخرية، فهو لم يعد مضحكا. لأن “سايكس – بيكو” الجديدة هي الأنظمة العربية ذاتها في العقود الأربعة الأخيرة، تلك الأنظمة التي فرّطت بالسيادة، وتنافست على خطب ود الولايات المتحدة بالقدرة على تقديم الخدمات، وصنعت سلاما مع إسرائيل على حساب الشعب الفلسطيني، وداست على حقوق الشعوب في الوقت ذاته.
أما سوف ما ينجم عن حركة الشعوب فلا ضمان له سوى مستوى وعيها ووعي قياداتها. لا توجد ضمانات!! ومن يريد أن يؤثر فلينزل وليعمل مع الناس! ولا يتوقعن أحد ان يؤثر على وعي الشعوب إيجابيا وهو يقف محايدا أو سلبيا تجاع معاناتها.

عزمي بشارة

Reve

http://news.nawaret.com/%D9%85%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA/%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%88-%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%B3-%D9%8A%D9%82%D9%84%D8%AF-%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%AC-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF%D9%85%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A8

See this happens for someone who fools himself of being someone else.

There’s No App for Syria
Why did Apple ban a game on the Syrian civil war?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/11/there_s_no_app_for_syria?wp_login_redirect=0

“Was it intentional as he prefers to withdraw from this mission that he qualified earlier as ‘impossible’”

“Zoo”,

Next time please try to be accurate when quoting someone.

UN envoy Brahimi says Syria mission ‘nearly impossible’

“I know how difficult it is – how nearly impossible. I can’t say impossible – [it is] nearly impossible.

Someone from inside Sweida told me today that the situation in the mainly druze city is worsening day after day since rebel milicias are trying to enter the city. People from Sweida is completely sure that if rebels enter the city it will be totally destroyed by the regime air force while druzes may suffer the revenge of some factions of the rebels.

I wonder what the fuxxx are the so called israeli and american ¨intelligentsia¨ doing to get some positive result? Is talking about American and Intelligentsia a non sense since both are contradictory terms?

No comment
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/62273/World/Region/Doubts-plague-Tunisia-two-years-after-Ben-Ali-.aspx

“I don’t know any Syrian who isn’t completely broken from the inside. A piece of us is tainted and has changed forever”

Tweet by Um Farouk – https://twitter.com/NaziqAlAbed

Mazen Maarouf a poet who criticized the Syrian regime, now exiled to Iceland

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/poetsofprotest/2012/08/2012829111914434307.html

UK Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt will answer your questions about the UK’s policy towards Syria live via Twitter on Monday 14th January from 11.15am-12.00pm GMT

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fco-minister-to-answer-questions-on-syria-via-twitter

Lions of Dariya, Damascus. Defending their land.

Words from Jabhat al Nusra members from Taftanaz airport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oaGIqkWolo

Lions of Daraa defend their land.

Daraya is very very strategic. Basically, after the regime retakes the town, it will forbid the rebels from getting closer to Damascus. Compared to the rebel’s gain of Taftanaz air base, which is quite like a symbolic target rather than minor military importance. Daraya was a solid stronghold of the rebel considered pretty much all of the residents there are Sunnis who are the staunch supporters and even part of the rebels. The loss of Daraya for the rebel shows they are not capable of withholding the onslaught of regime force even with all other supports they can get from locals and reinforcement. Given enough time and army forces which the regime lacks, the rebel has little change to be a threat to Damascus.

“Iran’s Ambassador to Damascus Mohammad-Reza Raouf-Sheibani has dismissed reports about an assassination attempt against himself…”

Tweet: Isn’t Bashar Assad Iran’s envoy to Syria?

Dozens of countries to urge UN to refer Syria to war crimes court

BERLIN – More than 50 countries have backed a call for the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, a move that would open the way for war crimes prosecutions.

A draft of the letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press says the situation in Syria should be referred to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal “without exceptions and irrespective of the alleged perpetrators.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Dozens+countries+urge+refer+Syria+crimes+court/7809596/story.html#ixzz2HlPy6dBA

Bashar Winning

373. Observer

Let’s have some fun, tell us again about your frustration over the absence of printed phone books in Syria.
Also also tell us more about you secret desire of having Syria divided according to ethnicity and religion. Are you working on that?

Justice to the Syrian unknown soldier

Previous media reports that Russia was taking its ‘distance’ toward Bashar al Assad, are turning out to be fallacies and wishful thinking.
Ibrahimi will soon retract the stupidities he said or resign.

Russia rejects Assad exit as precondition for Syria deal

January 12, 2013
By Steve Gutterman
Agence France Presse

MOSCOW: Russia voiced support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country’s conflict.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Jan-12/201971-russia-calls-for-transition-process-in-syria.ashx#ixzz2HlYrkS41

#413 Apple_mini

Far from the Turkish borders which is their main life line, the rebels can’t win or even survive.
They are trapped there until they are annihilated or Turkey dumps them, which ever comes first.

الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية كيان شاذ و مشروع طويل الأمد لشن الحروب.
US playing strategic arms game
By Hu Yumin*
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

Justice to the Syrian unknown soldier

1. Non of them is unknown, except to you and your foolish prethident who don’t seem to care for them other than being a background prop for a stupid speech (or a dumber post)..

2. Are you sure you want justice for them, many of those still alive may be executed if normal justice is to be applied.

Idiot..

and btw…. keep winning

At the moment, there was an interesting situation – Syrian opposition “suddenly” are unnecessary to anyone. They are “disappointed” not only Russia, but also their former patrons – Turkey, the United States, the European Union. This leads to what may support Assad’s opponents will be discontinued, and notwithstanding that the country will sit down at the negotiating table with the Syrian president. Left without much help from the outside, free Syrian army soon suffer the ultimate defeat, and Assad or his successors in the country restore peace and order. It is very likely that it is now the determining factor in the case of Syrian settlement
Source Link: http://globalconflict.ru/analytics/9747-sirijskij-konflikt-perelomnyj-moment

The link posted by Hanzal in #401 interviewing “Abu Jaber” is amazing. Abu jabber does not look like a prototype Ayman Al Zawahiri.. He looks lean, athletic, well dressed, presentable, nice beard, probably a child of the riches, and probably a college graduate. All similar interviews mentioned Bilad al Sham al Mubaraka. Al Sham and specifically Damascus has always been held very highly in the eyes of Arabs, Muslims, and the Turks too. I wonder where he is from. He is not talking colloquial Arabic so it is difficult to figure out. Is he ideologically driven by martyrdom or was he just horrified by the sheer brutality of the regime and could not bear to stay silent? He may die at any second… And brutally.. I feel for his mother or his wife..

Russian Navy exercise off the Syrian coast
http://worldwide-defense.blogspot.com/2013/01/russian-navy-exercise-off-syrian-coast.html
Russian Navy will conduct military maneuvers off the coast of Syria in preparation for inter-fleet exercises planned end of January in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, reported Friday the Russian Ministry of Defence.
“Led by the cruiser Moskva , a tactical group of the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea will conduct military maneuvers in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, “the source said.
It was earlier announced that naval exercises involving all Russian fleets – the Black Sea, North Pacific and Baltic – would be held in late January in the basin of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
According to the military department of the country, it will be the largest Russian exercises in the Mediterranean.

“Idiot” seems to be most popular insult by the pro-Al Nusra on this blog.
They childishly think that it’s effective in shutting people off.

Does it reflect a lack of an ability to reply in other ways or a sign of an irremediably blocked schoolboy mind?

Citizen

Since the expat opposition got the ‘legitimate’ stamp, that was supposed to give them a second life, the support they are getting is dwingling.
It is due to many factors.
First the preacher Khatib insisted that the USA changes its mind about labeling Al Nusra a terrorist organization. Then he failed to appear as a leader during his silent visit to the Syrian refugees in Turkey. After having been a asset, he is now a liability.
Then the increased importance the terrorist fighters of al Nusra are taking in assaults on the Syrian army is worried the West and also Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait. They are now cutting down the financial help to the rebels and are switching in humanitarian aid to the millions of refugees and displaced Syrians.
While the SOC-SNC-NNCROF “ambassador’ in France is calling for a military solution, the whole world is calling for a political solution. In the same time, that same organization have not succeeded in having any access or control to the armed rebels on the ground.
Obviously the credibility of the opposition , both political and military is on the decline.
This is serving well the Syria government who is waiting that the ripe apple finally falls.

This is what Revenire wrote
“OMEN I hope those people have learned their lesson. They need to be thankful the government is so generous.” Referring to the release of prisoners by the regime.

This encapsulates fully the slaver mentality of the regime. This is someone who has slaves and believes that he “owns” Syria. This is why the people will never allow this regime to remain in place. It will be dismantled piece by piece and will go into the dustbin of the most depraved and ridiculous categories of regimes.

ZOO you are truly a nitwit, in a country where the telephone and communications system is government owned, the lack of a phone book is a microcosm of the total ineptitude of the regime in providing anything absolutely anything of worth to the people.

ZOO you clearly also show that you do not wish to live with other Syrians unless they are your slaves. Slaves to your vision and power structure and minority superiority. You remind me of the Maronites of Lebanon who do not wish to have anything to do with their fellow Muslims. I remember watching Mrs. Helou the first lady of Lebanon declare that the three spoken languages are French English and Libneni as she refused to accept Arabic as another language in Lebanon.

Now one more time little insignificant ZOO, do not change the subject. What say you to the amount of money at the Damascus stock exchange as it will climb to 5 million pounds per day?

This is a fraction of the the budget that my family and I have set aside for the Syrian refugees in 2012 you nitwit.

Now one more time do not change the subject, the Russians want very much for Brahimi to continue his mission, while spoiled little brat God incarnate into a Batta with floppy ears, close set eyes, giraffe neck Prethident is having his temper tantrum that Brahimi has not stooped down to the floor to kiss his feet and prostrate himself in front of the Bab to the Mahdi. This is because he uttered the obvious.

Time to have your pretzel today

As for justice to the unknown soldier, you insult the word justice.

I will remind you from now on that the “immunity of the security services from prosecution” was enshrined in the constitution that was thrust down the throat of the Syrian people by the Eternally Dead Father. Go tell the victims of the security services who are immune from prosecution that you speak justice.

Abject and disgusting indeed.

Justice for Hamza one Shabih at a time in a court of law and a special lecture on the meaning of justice to all those who have not read the “immunity from prosecution clause”

From Taftanaz to idol worshipers courtesy of holy fighters.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/01/12/260037.html

Watch embedded video and enjoy.

Observer

If Ibrahimi really wants to stay he will have to retract what said.
He has already ‘clarified’ some of his declarations, but as usual the medias fail to report them as they prefer that the reader stays on the first impression.

A new heat seaking missiles with the FSA in Aleppo
http://youtu.be/yJ7lhFoLCZQ

#428 wizi

With the allahuakbarites, enjoy Daraya’s fall.

Syria: A jihadi paradise

By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/OA11Ak01.html

So Bashar al-Assad hath martially spoken – for the first time in seven months – predictably blaming the Syrian civil war on “terrorists” and “Western puppets”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, he of the former “zero problems with our neighbors” policy, commented that Assad only reads the reports of his secret services. C’mon, Ahmet; Bashar may be no Stephen Hawking, but he’s certainly getting his black holes right.

Assad, moreover, has a plan: a national dialogue leading to a national charter – to be submitted to a referendum – and then an enlarged government and a general amnesty. The problem is who is going to share all this bottled happiness because Assad totally
dismisses the new Syria opposition coalition as well as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), describing them as foreign-recruited gangs taking orders from foreign powers to implement one supreme agenda: the partition of Syria.

Still, Assad’s got a plan. First stage: all foreign powers financing the “terrorists” – as in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-Gulf Cooperation Council compound – must stop doing so. That’s already a major no-no. Only in a second stage would the Syrian Army cease all its operations, but still reserve the right to respond to any – inevitable – “provocation”.

Assad’s plan does not mention what happens to Assad himself. The only thing the multiple strands of the opposition agree on is that “the dictator must go” before any negotiations take place. Yet he wants to be a candidate to his own succession in 2014.

As if this was not a humongous “detail” torpedoing the whole construct of current UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, there’s still the crucial nagging point of Brahimi insisting on including the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in a Syrian transitional government. Brahimi should know better. It’s as if the UN was praying for a Hail Mary pass – that is, Assad’s voluntary abdication.

David Ignatius waking up to the bitter yet predicted realities of the Arab Spring

“The disorder in Syria illustrates a too-little discussed problem that has emerged in the past decade of war and revolution in the Arab world: When repressive police states are toppled through foreign invasion or civil war, the basic framework of law and order can disappear, too. This has been the case in Iraq, Libya and now Syria”

Worries about a ‘failed state’ in Syria

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-syria-descending-toward-anarchy-state-department-reports/2013/01/11/7a524326-5b58-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html

Growing chaos in the liberated areas of northern Syria is convincing some members of the Syrian opposition that the country will become a “failed state” unless an orderly political transition begins soon to replace President Bashar al-Assad.

This stark analysis is contained in an intelligence report provided to the State Department last week by Syrian sources working with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Describing the situation in the area from Aleppo to the Turkish border, where Assad’s army has largely disappeared, the report draws a picture of disorganized fighters, greedy arms peddlers and profiteering warlords.

This security vacuum in the Aleppo region appears to have helped Jabhat al-Nusra, which is allied with al-Qaeda. The group is benefiting not just from its prowess on the battlefield but from its refusal to engage in looting and other predatory behavior. In its emphasis on crude but egalitarian justice and social services, Jabhat al-Nusra emulates other successful Muslim extremist organizations, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The security situation isn’t as bad in rural areas, such as Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, according to the Syrian sources. Unlike the multiethnic sprawl of the cities, the rural towns and villages are tighter and more cohesive, with tribal and other traditional sources of authority filling the vacuum left by Assad’s crumbling army.

The disorder in Syria illustrates a too-little discussed problem that has emerged in the past decade of war and revolution in the Arab world: When repressive police states are toppled through foreign invasion or civil war, the basic framework of law and order can disappear, too. This has been the case in Iraq, Libya and now Syria.
….
The ridiculous Ignatius conclusion

The answer in Syria is to support moderate military forces among the rebels and assist a stable transition — keeping intact important institutions of the Syrian state but under new political management.

Choice: What is better for Syria’s future a weaken Bashar al Assad or a strong Al Qaeda?

Insight: Foreign fighters seek Islamic state in post-Assad Syria

By Yara Bayoumy

ALEPPO, Syria | Fri Jan 11, 2013 1:11pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/11/us-syria-jihadist-idUSBRE90A0XO20130111

(Reuters) – Huddled around a fire in a bombed-out building in Aleppo, foreign jihadists say they are fighting for a radical Islamic state in Syria – whether local rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad like it or not.

Among their fellow revolutionaries and civilians, these foreigners draw both respect for their iron discipline and fear that if Assad falls, they may turn on former allies to complete the struggle for an Islamic caliphate.

One Turkish fighter in the devastated Aleppo district of Karm al-Jabal expressed an unbending determination to achieve a state under Sharia Islamic law that worries many Syrians, the West and even regional backers of the anti-Assad rebellion.

“Syria…will be an Islamic and Sharia state and we will not accept anything else. Democracy and secularism are completely rejected,” said the fighter, who called himself Khattab.

Sporting a shaggy beard and with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, he warned anyone who might stand in the way. “We will fight them, even if they are among the revolutionaries or anyone else,” said Khattab, who left his job as a driver to fight for two years in Afghanistan before moving to Syria six months ago.

Palestinian solidarity has limits

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=299309

According to a January 3 Yediot Ahronoth report, both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have rejected a UN request that they take in Palestinians fleeing Syria.

Yediot claimed that Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh refused the appeal on ideological grounds, saying the absorption of Palestinian refugees into Gaza and the West Bank could be used by Israel to undermine the Palestinians’ so-called “right of return” to the Jewish state.

The PA reportedly rejected the request due to its ongoing severe financial crisis.

ZOO,

Please do not make that effort to try to defend what cannot be defended in any way. Assad´s Syria and Syria´s Assad has always been the same fuxx sheeeet.

The West and Islamic extremists work together when it suits them – Bosnia, Syria – and against each other when interests conflict – Mali.
https://twitter.com/DrMarcusP/status/290123582229581827

“In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters “it’s hard to imagine how you would have a transitional government with Assad still part of it.”

Try harder, Vicky…

#436 Sandro

I don’t need to do much effort, is is unraveling by itself whether you like it or not.

Over the hill punk rocker William Scott Scherk ‏@wsscherk tweeting at one person obsessively:

“William Scott Scherk ‏@wsscherk
@Mohamad_AlAssad — like many expat #Syria’n Assadists, his biggest fear is to put on an SAA uniform back ‘home’ — Rhymes with Snotocracy.”

He went at this poor guy like 100 times in an hour.

Bill is *just* a little obsessed, tweeting to people and ridiculing them for not joining the SAA. Funny criticism given 99% of the fake revolution tweeps are not in Syria; most are not even Syrian (like Bill). I’ve never seen Bill (and I am his #1 fan) ask Amal Hanano (or any number of his other pro-terrorist pals) to pick up a gun. I guess the old saw it true: the pen is mightier than the sword.

I have to laugh at how quickly France bombed Mali. They don’t dare try that in Syria do they? Question is who would they bomb if they did: Jabhat al-Nusra/FSA terrorists or the government?

🙂

Z Idiot @ 431,

Obviously, you have no clue what ‘fall’ means. But I did enjoy the video especially with the داريا logo at the upper left corner written in green, red and black.

From now on, you should not complain when others refer to you as Z idiot There is no better description and besides the word is a fully recognized word in English.

But most laughable is when Z idiot describes Ignatius as ridiculous while praising SANA subsidiary (atimes) contributor Escobar.

Z idiot is boundlessly idiotic.

I wonder if the jets that bombed the rats flew from Taftanaz?

Don’t bother discussing Revenire about Syria. He’s not a Syrian and he’s a troll. More importantly, he’s an idiot. When talking to him, always remember to insult him.

For example, I personally enjoy that Revenire is on this blog. Every time he writes something (and I’m not reading it anymore), I am overjoyed that I am not him.

Revenire, it must SUCK being you. I understand your pain, Revenire. I understand your pain. (Actually I don’t, but that’s what you’re supposed to say to crazy people).

Al-Nusra is the most potent and most organized force. Despite failed US plots to tarnish al-Nusra, it is emerging, by Allah’s Will, victorious over such plots and the evil criminal thugocracy,

http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/3462e0a6-d839-431d-b06b-5371b72b451d?GoogleStatID=9

From Ziad:

“Hurray for the SAA. Darayya is free, as we told you days ago. But don’t believe the reports about Taftanaz. It’s just propaganda.”

http://news.yahoo.com/official-syrian-troops-capture-much-daraya-112507441.html

“Syrian troops have captured most of a strategic Damascus suburb used by rebels as a base to threaten key regime facilities in the capital, a government official said Saturday.”

I think Revenire is a lebanese resistard from the labayka-ya-nasrallah crowd.

Al-Nusra is Al-Qaeda. Back into your rat hole VISITOR. No cheese for you today!

Wizi

Your idiotic vocabulary shows that you are idiot with a huge idiotic ego and your idiotic twin is not less idiot then you.
Continue writing your idiotic posts, they are making even idiots laugh.

And don’t stop posting your idiotic videos shot by an idiotic mobile phone carrier in a state of panic showing your idiotic idols screaming idiotically when they are taking a beating.
You are certainly the king of the idiots among the apes of the zoo.

You called for it.

Revenire

When Taftanaz will be retaken by the army, just try to find a media that will announce it.

Just like Damascus, Hama, Homs, Maaret Al Numan etc. the media were quick to announce they are ‘about’ to fall into the hands of the rebels… then silence.
No media dared announce that the assault on Damascus was the second debacle of the ‘heroic’ rebels..

The armeds rebels live in a respiratory with a tube coming from Turkey. Their time is counted.

wth?

The regime and other critics of western policy claim that chemical weapons reports are a fiction, comparing them to those made for Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq a decade ago.

But Rami Jarrah, a Cairo-based Syrian activist, said sources inside the Syrian government had told colleagues the regime was now prepared to use weapons in areas of Aleppo and Idlib from which civilians had fled.

I wish that was true but Rami is playing a game with Syria. It is called “I want NATO to bomb Syria” and all his garbage reflects this game. I know Rami. He isn’t even Syrian. He was born in Cyrus. Another “Syrian” calling for NATO to destroy Syria.

People who play this game don’t realize just how many dead Syrians there would be if NATO dared to attack Syria.

The USA Fails in Urging Russia to call for Syria’s Assad to Step Down

http://www.voanews.com/content/russia_fails_to_urge_syrias_assad_to_step_down/1582655.html

Russia is calling for a political transition process in Syria, but has stopped short of saying President Bashar al-Assad should relinquish power as part of a deal to end the country’s conflict.

In a statement Saturday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry reiterated Moscow’s long-held position that only Syrians can decide their future without outside interference.

Omen

Do you give any credit to that?
Desperate activists have been trying and saying just anything for months to force the NATO to intervene as they know that the armed rebels are crumbling with time playing against them and that the expat coalition is totally hopeless.
The international community is repeating that they want exclusively a political solution to the crisis. Are the activists deaf?

Qatar’s desperation culminates in a delirium: It calls for an ‘impartial” Arab force to impose peace on Syrians.

From which ‘impartial’ Arab countries does he plan to get them?
The guy is a lunatic.

Qatar revives proposal to send an Arab force to Syria

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:51 GMT
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/qatar-revives-proposal-to-send-an-arab-force-to-syria

Must see, very important, breaking: LOL @ Qatar and “Sheikh” Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani’s plea for a new Arab Legion go help the FSA rats.

Bill Scherk should volunteer – he could perhaps meet “Gay Girl in Damascus’ Amal Hanano.

Libya’s Muslim Brothers
The knack of organisation
The Muslim Brotherhood looks likely to make further gains

Jan 12th 2013 | BENGHAZI | from the print edition
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21569418-muslim-brotherhood-looks-likely-make-further-gains-knack

A LIBYAN official proudly shows pictures of his one-year-old triplet daughters on his mobile phone: polka-dotted veils hide the hair of all three, even though Muslim tradition suggests that girls need not cover up until puberty. The official is a leading figure in the Justice and Construction party, affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, the conservative political-cum-religious movement that is burgeoning right across the Middle East. In Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi it has so far done less well, getting only a fifth of the seats contested under party colours in a general election last July, compared with about half in Egypt and Tunisia. But that may change. The Justice and Construction party, founded only in March, is planning assiduously how to end up on top.

For one thing, it is rapidly building a sophisticated organisation, even as most of its competitors dither or fight among themselves. Starting from a much weaker base than in Egypt and Tunisia, where the Brothers have been strong for decades, the Libyan party has opened offices across the country, including a seven-floor tower in Benghazi, the second city. It has signed up hundreds of members in places where other parties have handfuls, including 1,500 in Benghazi’s central district alone.

A Stinger missile fired by the rebels at a jet fighter in Al-Ghouta missed its target and landed in a residential area in Jirmana, there are unconfirmed reports of casualties.
S’wayda is now targeted because rebels want to punish its citizens the same way they punished Aleppo with one major difference: most residents in S’Wayda are Druz,so this new adventure will have a stronger sectarian flavor and may lead to losing whatever little support rebels have among Druz in Syria.

Zoozoo said the rebels are crumbling, this is not true, infact it is the opposite, they made more gains lately.
He keep on saying the rebels are losing support, Is Assad gaining support?, his statement is self deceiving.

Most Druze I know support the revolution,Druze are honest people contrary to those who believe in Taqiyyeh,Dissimulation.

The Assad main advantage is the airforce,one third of his airforce has been destroyed,While Assad may still be in Damascus in a year,but the northwest will not be under his control,and probably the northeast too.

Whoever control Damascus will control Lebanon, If rebels win Damascus, at that time Iran has to switch,and events in Iraq will have major impact on things in Syria, while some believe the gulf state are reducing their aid to the rebels in Syria,they may be helping the opposition in Iraq.

MAJEDKHALDOUN if only the “rebel gains” weren’t all online hey?

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/71593_517936688227805_204884632_n.jpg
وقفة لشرفاء فلسطين تحت عنوان “ارفعوا ايديكم عن سورية# رافعين لافتة كتب عليها: “عاش الجيش العربي السوري البطل”

@Guffran#458
So now the FSA have stingers?!!
And they are so good that they are making the stinger fall over The Druze in case the stinger misses the jet fighter
How about the more simpler explanation that the not so accurate 1960 MiG missed its target?

Beautiful graffiti on a wall shelled by Assad’s forces in Daraa:

“Little do you know you opened a new window for the wind, the sun, hope, & freedom”

http://twitter.com/myeightcents/status/290168111141908480/photo/1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWL8qPWJNGo&sns=fb
Shabbiha revolt

@Guffran#458
So now the FSA in Damascus have stingers?!!
And they are so good that they are making the stinger fall over The Druze in case the stinger misses the jet fighter??
How about the more simpler explanation that the not so accurate 1960 MiG missed its target?

Syrian
I would not believe a word from Ghufran,once lier,always lier.

Z Idiot @449, 450,

Dream on dimwit, idiot stonehead.

Your posts are so full of contradictions, it makes calling you an idiot a full compliment.

I do believe the new “Gay Girl in Damascus” Amal Hanano missed this while she was in Aleppo. I wonder why?

The situation in the north is likely to deteriorate since the army has more important battles to fight and less soldiers to use, it looks like most helicopters have already left Taftanaz by the time the rebels arrived, also almost all senior officers escaped,the rebels have paid a very heavy price in terms of loss of lives to control an air field that was not crucial militarily, but those rebels ,and Turkey in particular, want a victory of some type and they got it, however,the bombardment of Taftanaz by army jets has not stopped after the base fell in rebel hands, I challenge anybody to tell us why that particular battle was worth fighting knowing that the regime will simply use other better protected bases and utilize smaller helicopter pads to take off and land !!
The mood among regime supporters is not depressive,as many expect, but rather defiant especially after the failure of the rebels to control Aleppo and Damascus and the fact that Homs and Hama are still in the hands of the regime and Reef Dimashq is under attack by the army on a daily basis. I feel sorry for any Syrian who receives pleasure from news of a little win by one side or the other, this is the slow death of a nation and not a revolution, and the only way out is for Assad to leave and the war to end, that ,however, will require a solution for islamist rebels who are likely to oppose any settlement that does not include turning Syria into a Syriastan, if Islamist rebels choose to fight against the will of most Syrians,they will lose, those rebels do not want Assad to go,he helps them win support and milk the GCC cash cows.

MK
I never believed anything Ghufran says,my comment was directed at the casual reader who might take his words seriously.

Taftanaz was a maintenance base. It is not important to the war.

Iran replaces any lost aircraft.

The Air Force is bombing the rats to Hell as I type; hundreds dead.

Like it or not, rebels do have few stinger missiles, this is widely believed to be true by both pro and anti regime sources. I post news from both camps and I chose to expose both sides even if what I say may not be always accurate, any error you see originates from the source not me.
I will not step on what I consider human waste only to unleash the foul smell, do not expect me to bring myself down to the level of people like khaldoun and visitor,etc.
Syria was in a bad shape until the evil of the regime was joined by the evil of armed gangs, then Syria got much worse, those of you who have two eyes need to use them,both, it took two dancers to perform this deadly tango.

Sports Champion Hisham al-Raqsheh Assassinated in Damascus
Jan 12, 2013

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- An armed terrorist group on Saturday assassinated champion Hisham al-Raqsheh in Housh Blas area in Damascus.

An official source told SANA reporter that a terrorist group opened fire on al-Raqsheh while he was on his way back home, causing his immediate death.

Al-Raqsheh worked as a coach for the Syrian walking team. He got the second place in West Asia Championship 2010 and won the Republic’s Championship in 10 km race walking in 2002.

The late champion represented Syria in several sports occasions and international marathon tournaments, the latest was Beirut International Marathon last November.

H. Said

الأخبار العاجلة لجميع المناطق السورية
2 hours ago ·
قالت إحدى الفتيات المفرج عنهنّ في اتفاقية تبادل الأسرى بين الحكومة السورية والجيش الحر، إنها “قابلت قبيل الإفراج عنها لجنة مؤلفة من إيراني وروسي وثالث تظن أنه تركي”، ورجحت أن يكونوا من الدبلوماسيين، وأضافت أن “الشخص الإيراني سألهنّ عن عدد الفتيات المتبقيات في الفروع الأمنية وأسمائهنّ”.

وذكرت المعتقلة السابقة أن “عددا كبيرا من النساء والفتيات لايزلن قيد الاعتقال التعسفي”، وأوضحت أنه لم تخرج “سوى 3 فتيات من أصل 18 فتاة كنّ موجودات في مهجع واحد في أحد فروع المخابرات العسكرية”، وفقا لصحيفة الشرق الإلكترونية.

وعند إطلاق سراح المعتقلات تم اقتيادهن إلى أحد فروع الشرطة في منطقة “الحلبوني” وسط العاصمة دمشق، حيث قابلن اللجنة التي تضم الروسي والإيراني، وفقا لذات المصدر.

كما تحدثت عن وجود أعداد كبيرة من الفتيات والنسوة الكبيرات في السن موجودات كرهائن، وأن بعضهن يعد من المفقوات، موضحة أن هناك فتاة من مدينة دوما تدعى فاتن رجب يعتقد أهلها أنها ماتت تحت التعذيب، لكنها مازالت حية، وكانت المخابرات الجوية اعتقلتها منذ أكثر من عام ثم حولتها إلى المخابرات العسكرية ووضعتها في زنزانة منفردة، ثم نقلت منذ 40 يوما إلى السجن الجماعي.

وبحسب ذات المصدر فإن “رجب تعرضت لتعذيب شديد، ومن ذلك حقنها بإبر مجهولة في الرأس، كما حاولت الانتحار أكثر من مرة”، وأضافت أن “هناك طفلة معتقلة منذ ما يقارب العام ونصف العام من حمص عمرها 12 عاما فقط، وتهمتها أنها غنت في إحدى المظاهرات للجيش الحر”، منوهة إلى أن “المنقبات المعتقلات عن الحواجز غالبا ما توجه لهن تهمة استدراج عناصر لخطفهم وذبحهم أو استدراجهم للانشقاق”.

وذكرت المعتقلة السابقة أن “الاعتداء على الفتيات والنساء يحدث في حمص فقط، أما في دمشق فيقتصر الأمر على التحرش والسباب بكلام بذيء”، وأن “التعذيب الذي تتعرض له المعتقلات مرتبط بالتهمة الموجهة لهن، فهناك الضرب والتعذيب بالكهرباء”، مضيفة أن “هناك محاولات انتحار بين المعتقلات، إذ حاولت سيدة من مدينة حماة الانتحار باستخدام دبابيس”.

وعن نوعية الطعام الذي تم تقديمه، قالت إن “الطعام سيء جدا، فالإفطار عبارة عن كيلو لبن لـ 19 معتقلة، بينما باقي الوجبات عبارة عن بطاطا أو قرنبيط ومعظمه لا يؤكل بسبب رداءة نوعيته وسوء الطهي”.

459 MAJEDKHALDOUN

“Zoozoo said the rebels are crumbling, this is not true, in fact it’s the opposite, they made more gains lately.”

Zoo says they’re losing, Mossie says they’re scurrying back into their holes, you say they’re making gains.

The fact is, idiots, it doesn’t matter. All the opposition has to do is keep an army (or armies) in the field and make it difficult (or impossible) for the regime to govern. If they can do that, they will win.

In the American Revolution (which none of you illiterates knows anything about), George Washington lost about half the battles his forces fought. But, by keeping an effective opposition army in the field, he bled the British white until they gave up and melted away. The War for Independence lasted eight years. So let’s see, you’re in your third year, yes?

Hang in there, Assholes. You may get your country back yet, but don’t get caught up in the day-to-day, battles-and-territory, won-or-lost narratives.

Focus on whether the opposition has an effective army in the field conducting operations against the regime. And remember the mathematics of it all: dead opposition soldiers get replaced; dead regime soldiers don’t.

Assad Cartoon of the day:

http://www.truthdig.com/images/cartoonuploads/putinsassad_500.jpg

JUERGEN : I understand that he is happy, but someone should tell him that without a pilot an helicopter is quite worthless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb8crEdzQkQ

OK, but this is one helicopter which will stop its killing missions

ZOO #455

The only people who are NOT impartial are those who want Bashar Assad sustained in power.

Everyone else just desperately wants it to be over.

I don’t know if the Emir of Qatar is calling for Arab military intervention in Syria out of “delirium”.

He sounds like a man with a plan.

Can we assume he has in mind “air forces” when he talks about Arab forces playing a role?

:::
مقتـل قائـد عمليـات “ريـف دمشـق” العميــد “أيــوب ناصـر حسيـن” مــن مرتبـات الحـرس الجمهـوري بكميـن للجيـش الحـر بدمشـق اليـوم وقـد قتـل بالكميـن 6 ضبـاط مـن الحـرس الجمـهوري. اضافة الي عشــــــــــــــرات الجنــــــــــــــــود قد ذهبـــــــــوا لجنـــــــــــهم بـــــاذن الله

It looks that I poked Ghufran,now he smells very bad

The FSA used up an IED to blow up one of Assad’s military trucks with 15 thugs in it. This was on the Saraqib Ariha road.

Congrats FSA and keep up the good work. IEDs are very effective against Assad’s killers.

The FSA used an IED to blow up one of Assad’s military trucks with 15 thugs in it. This was on the Saraqib Ariha road.

Congrats FSA and keep up the good work. IEDs are very effective against Assad’s killers.

Ha ha ha.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/64965_393334280759573_1112534189_n.jpg
كم تفو لهذا الخاين الكررررررر ^__~ ؟؟؟؟؟

“474. ANNIE said:
JUERGEN : I understand that he is happy, but someone should tell him that without a pilot an helicopter is quite worthless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb8crEdzQkQ
OK, but this is one helicopter which will stop its killing missions”

Guy was probably blown to a million pieces by rockets 10 minutes after his dance. What is with these people? He looks like an ape begging for a banana.

Remember the mathematics of it all: dead opposition soldiers get replaced; dead regime soldiers don’t.

Another Bashar Cartoon:

http://www.truthdig.com/images/cartoonuploads/assadspeech_500.jpg

Ghufran writes:

Like it or not, rebels do have few stinger missiles, this is widely believed to be true by both pro and anti regime sources. I post news from both camps and I chose to expose both sides even if what I say may not be always accurate, any error you see originates from the source not me.

This is the key phrase: any error you see originates from the source, not me.

— I support Ghufran 100% — in that I believe he is most honest, telling us exactly what he feels and quoting what he feels important. However …

Any error you see originates from the source, not me.

This is a problem, Ghufran. For you do not indicate the source in any detail. This is most necessary. Using the URL from the copy/paste is the best way for anyone to track down your sources.

For example, the note above about a Facebook posting from some murky place: Faisal Alqasem woke up when rebels kidnapped civilians from alswaydaa:

Faisal Qasim wrote on his social networking site Facebook

I looked for the text you quoted from Arabic sources. I found it. I found it on SyriaTruth and I found it on another pro-REVENIRE site. It is going the rounds.

Guess what else I found? That’s right, a report from Faisal himself that the quote/story was a fabrication.

Similary, today you have posted ZERO SOURCES.

In which case you get a reaction like that of MAJEDKHALDOUN, a stupid and uniformed bit of invective that you are a ‘lier.’

You are most definitely NOT a liar, Ghufran, but you degrade your contributions when you do not identify your sources with a URL.

I ALWAYS look up your sources, such as they are. I track them down. Why should I or anyone track down your sources when you just as easily give the URL to the story you quote?

Please try harder to see the sense in giving an actual link to the material you quote.

For additional impetus, you say above that it is obvious and agreed that the rebels/thugs/monsters/alNusra yadda yadda have stingers.

This is incomplete. The best place to discover just what the FSA/thugs/Takfiri monsters have in hand is to consult those weapons specialists who can comment knowledgeably (and without bias) on what is known and what is unknown.

‘Stingers’ are an actual class/unique product. MANPADs are not Stingers, but Stingers are MANPADS.

The report (from what source we have absolutely no idea) that purports a missed target (where?) may or may not be true.

On the surface, it sounds invalid, because that is not how MANPADs behave.

Please do no presume knowledge where you do not have it — especially when your sources are obscured by (laziness?) inattention to detail.

Besides MAJEDKHALDOUN’s unpleasant and untrue accusation, there are a few of us here who just wish you would be responsible.

Furthermore, your conclusions and analysis (in re TAFTANAZ) are faulty and contradicted on the ground and on the basis of the ferocious SAA attempts to prevent FSA/thug takeover.

REVENIRE Is full of wishful thinking that Taftanaz was a ‘maintenance’ base. And this …

it looks like most helicopters have already left Taftanaz by the time the rebels arrived, also almost all senior officers escaped,the rebels have paid a very heavy price in terms of loss of lives to control an air field that was not crucial militarily,

It looks like and not crucial militarily … this is your personal, pessimistic take, and is not supported by anyone except the fully deluded like the man/girl who is posting a continuous stream of disinformation.

Why contribute to misinformation by omission, Ghufran? Why stand on your honour, reject valid criticism of your posting habits, and denigrate those who challenge you as fools?

Please provide accurate sources for your excerpts. It is a good idea, and it helps everyone see who is saying what.

That is that last time I will mention it — until the next time you try to dodge responsibility for errors and gross errors in the copy/pastes you slap up here.

Even the demented REVENIRE understands why links are important.

Nuff said.

كشف “بولنت يلديريم”، رئيس منظمة الإغاثة التركية “IHH”، أسرار تبادل الأسرى الإيرانيين، الذي كانوا محتجزين لدى الجيش السوري الحر، مقابل إفراج النظام السوري عن 2130 أسيرا محتجزين في سجونه المختلفة
few things he said were worth mentioning:
1. Iran still cares about its citizens,unlike our regime that could not win the release of any Syrian held by the rebels.
2. the hostages were in Douma few miles from Damascus, a reminder of how weak regime control over Syria has become.
3. the number of women in Syria’s prison is less than 2,000 (according to the guy)

Reve,

You have had hard time believing that the rebels took over Taftanaz. I am glad that Lithium is doing what it is supposed to do. Your behavior is less manic and you are getting some sleep. Do yo see know that Taftanaz is not under the control of Assad’s thugs?