And next, Syria?

[teqniq]

Russian airstrikes force a halt to aid in Syria, triggering a new crisis

 

[Casually Red]

A timely quote here from the spokesperson of the self styled " Syrian Human rights league " welcoming the release of the Islamist prisoners from snednaya and calling for them all to be released . That is what the initial protestors were demanding at the very beginning . No doubt about it . As they were peacefully torching buildings, in peaceful protest .

Protesters burn gov. buildings in 2 Syrian towns

Syria’s Assad moves to allay fury after security forces fire on protesters

Seems pretty clear there the release of these guys was what the protestors were calling for from day one, and the releases were definitely welcomed . While at the same time Assad was ordering his forces to pull back from confrontations .

 

[teqniq]

The aftermath of Russian airstrikes: Latakia tallies the toll

 

[Casually Red]

That might be the wrong mob, but I've no reason to believe that the LCCs covered here don't exist, or are proxies. There's plenty of reported activity of communities self-organising in the vacuum created by four years of war & shifting boundaries within zones of military/paramilitary control.

Edited to add - the Syrian people mentioned in butchersapron post4573 exist, & as mentioned before, are shouting for us to notice them, recognise them, not remove them from history.

Well sadly the original mob you were praising as a viable alternative we should take note of are run by these guys

Interim Govt. Faces Bankruptcy Amid Mass Corruption

Measles vaccination mix-up leaves 15 infants dead in northern Syria

Humanitarian arm of Syrian opposition stumbles at audit hurdle

Also sadly my ancient I pad can't make out the text on your link to an apparently different mob recommended by the forums chief constable . Somehow I don't really think I'm missing much though . Not being sarcastic, genuinely don't believe any progressive could still class an foreign backed Islamic insurgency as a revolution . Only a fucking idiot could .

 

[Casually Red]

Edited to add - the Syrian people mentioned in butchersapron post4573 exist, & as mentioned before, are shouting for us to notice them, recognise them, not remove them from history.

No offence...because I generally appreciate your posts...but the millions who voted for Assad demanded that too. And Butchers , his ilk and his "revolution " would be happy to see that and them erased from history . And indeed the face of the planet should their grand " revolution" ever succeed .

 

[Casually Red]

The aftermath of Russian airstrikes: Latakia tallies the toll

Ah well, could be worse. At least nobody was abducting their women and children by the hundred and selling them into all sorts of degrading slavery . Many of their non Turkmen neighbours haven't been seen again since the glorious revolution ...including the so called local Turkmen branch of the FSA..swept into their towns and villages across Latakia . Somehow I don't think that lot will be back after what's happened there .

LA Times

Syria: massacre reports emerge from Assad's Alawite heartland

 

[Patteran]

No offence...because I generally appreciate your posts...but the millions who voted for Assad demanded that too. And Butchers , his ilk and his "revolution " would be happy to see that and them erased from history . And indeed the face of the planet should their grand " revolution" ever succeed .

I think we can both accept that there's decent people in every zone of control in Syria, trapped by circumstance. I'll keep looking for grass roots positives, CR, beyond Assad/ISIS/NATO/GCC violence - not because I'm a giddy romantic or a divvy pacifist, but because I've faith in normal (particularly w/c) people.

 

[Casually Red]

I think we can both accept that there's decent people in every zone of control in Syria, trapped by circumstance. I'll keep looking for grass roots positives, CR, beyond Assad/ISIS/NATO/GCC violence - not because I'm a giddy romantic or a divvy pacifist, but because I've faith in normal (particularly w/c) people.

I've no doubt about that at all . But my point is there simply isn't any progressive revolution going on in Syria regardless of any website and no matter how much a few lefties click their heels together and will it so . The existence of decent people should not be used as a fig leaf for a sectarian monstrosity and to support the destruction of a country . Promotion and support of this thing under any guise and under any justification can and should be challenged in my view .
Butchers and his flock aren't just pointing to the existence of a few lefties, they go a lot further than that. They use this mere handful to justify support for a much wider project that those people are mere flotsam on the surface of. A complete irrelevance in the scheme of things, albeit not as individual human beings .

 

[sihhi]

A timely quote here from the spokesperson of the self styled " Syrian Human rights league " welcoming the release of the Islamist prisoners from snednaya and calling for them all to be released . That is what the initial protestors were demanding at the very beginning . No doubt about it . As they were peacefully torching buildings, in peaceful protest .

Protesters burn gov. buildings in 2 Syrian towns

Syria’s Assad moves to allay fury after security forces fire on protesters

Seems pretty clear there the release of these guys was what the protestors were calling for from day one, and the releases were definitely welcomed . While at the same time Assad was ordering his forces to pull back from confrontations .

That's the release of March 2011, there was also a release in May 2011 and a "general amnesty" in May-June 2011, which managed to release civilian criminals and plotting Islamists but not the thousands arrested since March 2011 when protests really began to spread to virtually every corner.

I don't think there is a process of social revolution in Syria any more where people are becoming more confident in their daily lives and taking control of economic measures away from property owners, investors and management. There appears to be ongoing regression and as you fairly describe it - a sort of rule by paramilitaries or military.

I am not sure there is a deep process of social revolution in the kantons either - there's a nationalist revolution that is shedding a few of the old structures and introducing PKK-DEP norms into the more village feudal areas of Syrian Kurdistan.

The existence of decent people should not be used as a fig leaf for a sectarian monstrosity and to support the destruction of a country. Promotion and support of this thing under any guise and under any justification can and should be challenged in my view .

How is what butchersapron has typed has meant he "supports the destruction of a country"? We could aswell group every single uprising attacked by a country's military as the destruction of a country, by your definition.

 

[Casually Red]

That's the release of March 2011, there was also a release in May 2011 and a "general amnesty" in May-June 2011, which managed to release civilian criminals and plotting Islamists but not the thousands arrested since March 2011 when protests really began to spread to virtually every corner.

I don't think there is a process of social revolution in Syria any more where people are becoming more confident in their daily lives and taking control of economic measures away from property owners, investors and management. There appears to be ongoing regression and as you fairly describe it - a sort of rule by paramilitaries or military.

I am not sure there is a deep process of social revolution in the kantons either - there's a nationalist revolution that is shedding a few of the old structures and introducing PKK-DEP norms into the more village feudal areas of Syrian Kurdistan.



How is what butchersapron has typed has meant he "supports the destruction of a country"? We could aswell group every single uprising attacked by a country's military as the destruction of a country, by your definition.

The destruction of a country is what I refer to should the various backers of this " revolution " succeed . I'm talking about the aftermath, not what's happening now . Either sharia and sectarianism accompanied by mass cleansing of minorities...meaning an end to what "Syria " comprises or it's splitting up into a series of enforced bantustans . That's what the foreign powers had in mind for it and it's all this uprising ..overwhelmingly foreign sponsored from the outset..ever offered. Regardless of any liberal pipe dreams, because it's all they ever were .

 

[xenon]

Assad or Isis.


That's it.

 

[J Ed]

Interesting lecture here in which an academic outlines some pretty bleak prospects for the future of Iraq and the continuation of ISIS in some form for a long time to come.

 

[frogwoman]

Jihadology has a,new podcast out dunno if i can listen to it tonight tho.

 

[J Ed]

Assad Can Stay, for Now: Kerry Accepts Russian Stance

 

[BigMoaner]

seeing little kids pulled out of the rubble of an airstrike today made me so sad and angry, not just by the west but the whole fucking lot of it.

when i think how scared my little un gets by just the littlest thing and how terrified these kids (and adults) must be feeling it just made me feel sick.

 

[teqniq]

 

[teqniq]

If the Dead Could Speak
Mass Deaths and Torture in Syria’s Detention Facilities

Snce the beginning of Syria’s uprising in 2011, many have died in detention facilities run by the Syrian government’s notorious mukhabarat (security agencies). In 2012, Human Rights Watch identified and mapped 27 of these detention centers around the country, many in the capital, Damascus. While accounts by released detainees and defectors consistently indicated that incommunicado detention and torture were rampant and detainees were dying in large numbers in Syria, the scale of abuse and deaths in detention remained unknown.

Then in January 2014, news emerged that a defector had left Syria with tens of thousands of images, many showing the bodies of detainees who died in Syria’s detention centers. A team of international lawyers, as well as Syrian activists, interviewed the defector, code-named “Caesar,” who stated that, as an official forensic photographer for the Military Police, he had personally photographed bodies of dead detainees and helped to archive thousands more similar photographs....

 

[sihhi]

There is something going on which is probably inevitable but sad all the same the NGOisation of (now increasingly diaspora-based) opposition politics eg al-jumhuriya

After some debate, Yassin and his friends founded the online magazine Al-Jumhuriya(The Republic) in March 2012. Yassin moved to Istanbul at the end of 2013 and currently serves as the magazine’s editor-in-chief. With its founders scattered around the globe, Al-Junhuriya was entirely volunteer-run for the first two years of its existence. With grants eventually coming from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Arab Reform Initiative, Al-Jumhuriya became a professional publication and a full-time job for Yassin and co-founder Karam Nachar.

The Arab Reform Initiative is a Paris NGO/grouping of Arabist academic think-tanks and the Heinrich Boll Stifting, the German NGO that is a Greens mouthpiece [Frederich Ebert Stiftung is the SPD one, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung is Die Linke one].

It's a worthwhile publication but its links to its base the 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and the mostly rural Syrians of opposition held areas will become more non-democratic with the NGO influence.

 

[Coolfonz]

seeing little kids pulled out of the rubble of an airstrike today made me so sad and angry, not just by the west but the whole fucking lot of it.

when i think how scared my little un gets by just the littlest thing and how terrified these kids (and adults) must be feeling it just made me feel sick.

Exactly, well said.

 

[camouflage]

Came here to post this: U.S. Ends Its Opposition to Democracy in Syria

For the first time today (December 15th), the United States has publicly and officially accepted the position that Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon have consistently held on the Syrian situation: that only a free and fair internationally monitored and accepted election of Syria’s President by the people of Syria can legitimately determine whom the President of Syria ought to be, and that no Syrian citizen, not even the current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad if he decides to be a candidate, can be blocked by any foreign power from being a candidate in that election.

Great news no? Leaving behind AssadMustGoism and the pulling of little children from rubble that it entails so that finally political processes can replace Syrias civil war is in my opinion a great step forward. With any luck the Crusade is over, half a million dead children in pursuit of Western foreign policy was never worth it.

As the Libyaration of Syria goes we can thank Erdogan for providing the context for dead-ending the escalation of this thing with a NATOStan-no-fly-zone (Jihadimerc protected rear-area) prevented by an S-400 enforced no-fly-zone instead, provided the Exceptionalists really are now ready to let politics happen. Well, still many many problems in play but undermining the main pillars of this war is something.

 

[teqniq]

Came here to post this: U.S. Ends Its Opposition to Democracy in Syria



Great news no? Leaving behind AssadMustGoism and the pulling of little children from rubble that it entails so that finally political processes can replace Syrias civil war is in my opinion a great step forward. With any luck the Crusade is over, half a million dead children in pursuit of Western foreign policy was never worth it.

S-400 has certainly made a contribution as far as the Libyaration of Syria goes anyway. In a way we can thank Erdogan for dead-ending the escalation of this thing with a NATOStan-no-fly-zone... provided the Exceptionalists really are now ready to let politics happen.

It has never been entirely about Western foreign policy though there has been plenty of interference on that front. It is also about gulf state Russian and Iranian interests. Last but not least it was the Syrian people themselves who tried for more democracy through peaceful protests.

 

[camouflage]

It has never been entirely about Western foreign policy though there has been plenty of interference on that front. It is also about gulf state Russian and Iranian interests. Last but not least it was the Syrian people themselves who tried for more democracy through peaceful protests.

Yes Russian and Iranian interests, not being destabilised by jihadist pseudo-states or violent power-vacuums for neigbours or living in a world where Washingtons regime-change efforts are now the accepted norm is certainly in their interest. The peaceful protests narrative must have been at least partially true but it's definitely not the whole truth. Going forward... internationally recognized elections with internationally recognized outcomes even if that outcome is Assad for another term is the best way toward peace.

 

[J Ed]

German spies cooperating again with Assad's secret service - Bild

 

[J Ed]

Came here to post this: U.S. Ends Its Opposition to Democracy in Syria

Democracy? Nothing says democracy like hereditary succession.

 

[Pickman's model]

the americans have killed and injured 50 iraqi soldiers fighting isis

Breaking: 30+ Iraqi soldiers fighting ISIS killed in US airstrike - Iraq MP (updated)

 

[J Ed]

the americans have killed and injured 50 iraqi soldiers fighting isis

Breaking: 30+ Iraqi soldiers fighting ISIS killed in US airstrike - Iraq MP (updated)

But how can this be? We were told repeatedly during the Commons debate that the missiles used by the coalition were basically incapable of hitting the wrong target and that they were even better than the missiles that we were tol would never hit civilians but actually did quite often in Libya, Gulf War 2, Gulf War 1 ad nauseum

 

[camouflage]

Democracy? Nothing says democracy like hereditary succession.

Yerz. Clinton 2016!

We have to work with the world we have, and all it's messy unpleasant history, Assad has been president, and will probably be on the future ballot. Given that, and given whoever else gets to run... who will a majority of the Syrian people vote for? Put the purism aside and let's hope the war can be bought to an end. Henceforth... politics. A potential opposition slogan- "forget Daddy's boy, vote Mo, for a brighter tomorrow" etc, rather than just snipers, jihadis and suicide bombs.

 

[coley]

Yerz. Clinton 2016!

We have to work with the world we have, and all it's messy unpleasant history, Assad has been president, and will probably be on the future ballot. Given that, and given whoever else gets to run... who will a majority of the Syrian people vote for? Put the purism aside and let's hope the war can be bought to an end. Henceforth... politics. A potential opposition slogan- "forget Daddy's boy, vote Mo, for a brighter tomorrow" etc, rather than just snipers, jihadis and suicide bombs.

And if Assad loses? Reckon he will just ride quietly off into the sunset?

 

[bluescreen]

And if Saddam loses? Reckon he will just ride quietly off into the sunset?

Admittedly, at times this feels like déja vu all over again.

 

[coley]

Admittedly, at times this feels like déja vu all over again.

Oops