And next, Syria?

[Delroy Booth]

**BILLY NO MATES FRIDAY NIGHT SYRIAN UPDATE**

So Assad's talking up a ceasefire saying publicly for the first time what we all knew, that they can't win the war outright. This should put an end to the notion that the Assad govt is handily winning the war, which seems to have been uncritically accepted in some circles following the the govt victory at Al-Qusayr back in June.

Brief recap: After Al-Qusayr the govt went on a series of other offensives around the country, but these have not been as succcesful as the Al-Qusayr battle. The first offensive after Al-Qusayr was to reclaim Mennakh Azaz airbase in Azaz, which had been under siege for months by Free Syrian Army. This attempt was unsucessful, and the airbase fell into the hands of the Free Syrian Army in July, and the vast air base is now a battle site between the FSA and the hardline Islamist factions, with conflicting reports saying Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) now have the airbase (here and here) others saying a truce has been signed (here and here) but doesn't specify which group currently controls the base.

Then in early July the Syrian Army moved onto Homs city, a critical strategic area that links Damascus to the Alawite coast. It lies between the Anti-Lebanon and Jabal al-nusaryiyah Mountains in an area called the Homs Gap, which has historically been the route chosen by invading armies hoping to get into the interior of Syria. The subsequent campaign in Homs has been much less decisive than in al-Qusayr. Most of the city is now in government hands, but many suburbs are still controlled by rebels stubbornly refusing to withdraw. The situation in Damascus barely improved following Al-Qusayr. Large areas of the outer suburbs remain in the hands of militants, showing that there's been conscious shift in rebel tactcs to try and cut off the capital and force Assad and his men to flee to the Alawite coasts in the aftermath losing in al-Qusayr. It might even be co-ordinated with the recent threat of American intervention, to really put the pressure on the core of Assad's government and trigger defections. Some rumours suggest up to "40 or 50 thousand" rebel fighters surround the capital (Bob Fisk has a habit of being melodramtic with these things) and despite daily incursions by the Syrian Arab Army they've been unable to make a breakthrough on this front. Aleppo remains divided between rebels and govt, but the surrounding northern border with Turkey is well beyond Assad's reach, as this footage from earlier in the week of a Syrian helicopter being shot down by a Turkish F-16 shows us (the helicopter landed in FSA controlled Syrian territory, putting doubts on the Turkish governments claim that it violated Turkish airspace. If they were in Turkish airspace it was probably to defect/escape, not singlehandedly wage war against Turkey in their little helicopter. The pilots were captured alive by the FSA and beheaded on camera then stuck all over Youtube btw.) The central province of Raqqah and stretching all the way from the Turkish border in the north to the Iraqi border in the southern desert is now firmly under Islamist-rebel jurisdiction, cutting off the Kurds in the eastern Al-haqqah province from any support from Damascus, and spilling over into Anbar, Iraq. With Kurdish guerilla's involved in heavy fighting trying to defend their turf, many are now fleeing north-eastern Syria into Kurdish-Iraq (as documented on this thread). Had the Syrian govt successfully been able to continue from the victory at al-Qusayr with a series of decisive military victories, I don't think we'd now be seeing the Assad government talking about stalemates, ceasefires and giving up it's chemical weapons.

You have to ask now, are the rebels prepared to accept any kind of ceasefire? And with which rebels? So far the rebels seem to have rejected any attempt at a ceasefire, so that doesn't look hopeful, but when you're dealing with hundreds of different militia groups how can you get agreement amongst them all to sign a peace deal and hold them to it? Assuming some kind of peace deal with the government is done, how are they going to stop the rebel militias fighting amongst themselves, just like the post-revolutionary militias in Libya?

Whilst Putin has been winning plaudits for his statesmanship, this should all be seen as a victory for the US in foreign policy terms. A messy one, not a clear-cut one that they were going for, but a victory all the same. They have successfully dealt with the potentially tricky issue of chemical weapons with the Russians and have tied up one of their their loose ends for the upcoming Geneva peace talks. For all the talk in the news of US-Russian tenions this deal is one that appears to have been in the works for some time behind the scenes (report here) with the US delaying things (to Russian's annoyance) to improve their bargaining position in Geneva, and to put pressure on the Assad govt and encourage defections. This has been one the main tactics the US has tried to use throughout the Syrian campaign, hoping for the state to implode, a point that Patrick Cockburn's latest in the Independent makes:

Ideally, the US and its allies would like a coup within the Syrian government that would get rid of Assad and his family, but otherwise maintain the status quo. But Ba’athist regimes in Iraq and Syria were designed to be coup-proof: the intelligence services are too powerful and omnipresent for an anti-Assad plot to succeed

1/2

 

[Delroy Booth]

2/2

Syria is crippled, soon to be partitioned. US-trained Free Syrian Army soldiers in Jordan will enforce it (here) Assad will negotiate his own withdrawl and will step down at some point in 2014, and I wouldn't pay much attention to any political process of reform, that opportunity came and went in 2011 Bashar al-Assad blew it. Quite who governs the rest of the country I have no idea but we'll soon see how it works out. Hezbollah is getting dragged deeper in the quagmire, with the violence spreading into Lebanon. Iran is now desperately alone and under sanctions, and now reduced to pretty much openly begging the Americans for a reset in relations - the latest being President Rouhani's op-ed in the Washington Post, and recently sending a tweet wishing Jews a happy Rosh Hashanah. He's expected to make a speech at the UN this weekend that strikes a new tone with it's relationship with Washington (ie does exactly what Uncle Sam wants) and we'll see if the US and Israel does a walk out. All in all this amounts to a successful piece of gunboat diplomacy from the yanks that's successfully smashed the much vaunted "Axis of Resistance" to pieces. The US has managed all these extremely complex affairs from a safe(ish) distance, with limited on the ground engagement, merely by manipulating events from outside with the threat of force and using their diplomatic weight. Obama's had a political tightrope to walk, balancing domestic opposition to war with sending signals of American decline to China and Russia, but he's managed to come out of this very risky strategy on the other side with more or less everything he could've asked for and without having to send in US troops. Of course Putin has done moderately well out of it because he's forced the US to accommodate him in this process, with a bit of diplomatic tantrum throwing and some op-ed writing of his own, a marked improvement over the previous decades where post-Soviet Russia has looked on passively as the US does as it pleases in the middle-east, which drew this hilarious cranky response from John McCain in Pravda. By skilfully using popular western opposition to war in the middle-east and invoking international law at every opportunity, he's managed to contain US unilateralism in the middle east in this instance. Which goes to show - it is a much more multi-polar world than it used to be and Russia is still a major actor when it choses to be, and the US clearly in a slow long-term decline. But this can be overstated and it can distract us from what's gone on here and now, which is a good outcome for the US and in particular Israel.

Patrick Cockburn, in the same article I quoted earlier, makes a similar point.

It is easy to overstate the extent to which the US is less of a power in the Middle East than 10 years ago. The implosion of Syria since 2011 is in its interests since, whoever wins the civil war, Syria will be weak, divided and no longer an obstacle to American influence. Moreover, no other power or combination of powers is in a position to take America’s place. When the US does not take the initiative in the region, nobody else does.

The Syrian rebels may sense that the game is slipping away from them. For all the US desire to keep the threat of air strikes against Assad in reserve, President Obama’s ability to order an attack is in practice limited by its unpopularity at home and the need for co-operation with Russia abroad. Agreement on eliminating Assad’s chemical weapons requires Assad’s co-operation. Chemical weapons have become the central focus of diplomacy rather than, as had previously been the case, Assad’s departure.

Patrick Cockburn's coverage of Syria has been excellent. Far more insightful and less hyperbolic than Robert Fisk at the Independent's stuff.

I couldn't understand why the US were being so obstinate about this, why they didn't seem like they were willing to settle for any less than Assad hung and drawn through the streets of Damascus. They could've made this kind of deal months ago if they'd wanted. Well now I suppose they've finally settled for a hobbled Syria, for the time being, now the chemical weapons are being dealt with. I just wish they could've done this months ago instead of dragging it out as the carnage continues.

That's just how it goes. America has the structural advantage, they get to call the shots when it comes to the timetable negotiations take place on and on what terms. This poistion of power ultimately derives not from international law but from the fact the US is still militarily the world's only true superpower. And just because the US is declining in the long term doesn't make them more likely to retreat into isolationism in the short-term. If anything Empires have been just as prone to using military force when on the decline, trying to hold onto what they've got, than when they're expanding.

 

[Delroy Booth]

apologies for massive indulgent shitposting btw, I haven't had the free time I normally have so whereas I might've put that into a series of posts over the course of a few weeks that all came out in one massive constipated chunk.

 

[yield]

Don't be daft it's all solid.

 

[gosub]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/STUDY_THE_VIDEOS_THAT_SPEAKS_ABOUT_CHEMICALS_BETA_VERSION.pdf

 

[ayatollah]

apologies for massive indulgent shitposting btw, I haven't had the free time I normally have so whereas I might've put that into a series of posts over the course of a few weeks that all came out in one massive constipated chunk.

Interesting stuff Delroy. However I think the "arena of conflict" that we have to really consider is much, much wider than the very recent "lines on maps" state concoctions of post WWI British and French Imperialist colonialism in the Middle East. What really must be keeping the US State Department strategists awake at night is the evident unravelling of the entire artificial patchwork of historically rootless states arising from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. None of the Middle East states, apart from Egypt (and Iran), are based on stable ethnic or religious conglomerations - particularly with the Kurdish national community divided up across them. That the intrinsically unstable artificial states of Lebanon, Libya ,Syria and Iraq,Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Quatar, etc, have survived within the pretty random borders drawn up by British and French (and Italian) colonialists, is a testament to the ruthless dictatorial systems of rule established in each - often with the ongoing support of western Imperialism - but also sometimes with "oppositional" regimes too . Nevertheless , what has been remarkable is , despite wars and regime changes, (and of course with the constant pro-Western support and meddling of that "loyal little Ulster" settler state, Israel) the post 1918 cobbled together boundaries have generally stuck - and the oil has kept pumping to the Western economies.

What is happening in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria today is an interlinked conflict merging into one cathartic unravelling of the post 1918 colonial boundary carve up. The religious and ethnic conflicts now playing bloodily out could well lead to a complete re-division of the boundaries of Syria/Lebanon/Iraq - with population transfers on a 1947 India/Pakistan scale eventually involved. To imagine that US Imperialism can manipulatively "put the lid back on this pot" easily or quickly, or at all, is to underestimate just how big a regional powderkeg is starting to reach explosion point . I think this regional conflict has a lot further to go, and a lot more blood to be spilt, before a new structure of stability emerges . I don't think any ceasefire deals with the Assad regime and the extremely diverse "oppositional forces" are going to put the deeply rooted regional fire out any time soon. If the "grand plan" of the US State Department was to create a Middle East filled with failed states, incapable of defending their oil reserves from US exploitation in its final 50 years or so of reserve life, they succeeded big-time - but the looming war of against all across the region could well end up destroying the very resource prize so much of the colonial/ and imperialist plots and alliances have been about since 1918. The out of control oil well fires of the fall of Saddam could soon be repeated right across the region. The Israeli strategists might be gleeful, but this conflict could yet consume them too.

 

[TomUS]

Funny, isn't it? how 10 years ago everyone was disputing the existence of this organisation as it looked like a reason for the US to swap the fight against the commies for a fight against Al Q to prolong their arms spend. But now you are going along with the neocons and their perpetual war on terror against an unquanifiable enemy. How times change.

More than funny...hilarious. Born again neocon-like crusaders against Sunni jihadists who had been treated with a good deal of sympathy & even admiration for fighting the Western imperialists in Afghan. Don't hear much of that talk lately around here. The praise of Hamas has gone pretty silent too.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Interesting stuff Delroy. However I think the "arena of conflict" that we have to really consider is much, much wider than the very recent "lines on maps" state concoctions of post WWI British and French Imperialist colonialism in the Middle East. What really must be keeping the US State Department strategists awake at night is the evident unravelling of the entire artificial patchwork of historically rootless states arising from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. None of the Middle East states, apart from Egypt (and Iran), are based on stable ethnic or religious conglomerations - particularly with the Kurdish national community divided up across them. That the intrinsically unstable artificial states of Lebanon, Libya ,Syria and Iraq,Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Quatar, etc, have survived within the pretty random borders drawn up by British and French (and Italian) colonialists, is a testament to the ruthless dictatorial systems of rule established in each - often with the ongoing support of western Imperialism - but also sometimes with "oppositional" regimes too . Nevertheless , what has been remarkable is , despite wars and regime changes, (and of course with the constant pro-Western support and meddling of that "loyal little Ulster" settler state, Israel) the post 1918 cobbled together boundaries have generally stuck - and the oil has kept pumping to the Western economies.

Thanks for the considered reply. There's a couple of points I want to address, coz although I agree with the broad sweep of what you're saying there's a couple of little details. This bit "That the intrinsically unstable artificial states of Lebanon, Libya ,Syria and Iraq,Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Quatar, etc, have survived within the pretty random borders drawn up by British and French (and Italian) colonialists, is a testament to the ruthless dictatorial systems of rule established in each"

I'd take issue with the idea of them being random borders. The men who made those borders were very smart, and designed it in this way for a reason. They had to divide up the vast provinces of the Ottoman empire into something that vaguely resembled a Europeanised network of nation-states. But there's another factor - that often these states were deliberately designed as minority-rule states, not by the oversight or ignorance of the people who made the boundaries, but because of old fashioned divide and rule imperialism. There's 3 prime examples of this: Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Lebanon was entrusted to a Christian minority as it's ruling class, Syria had an Alawite minority ruling elite, and Iraq had a Sunni minority one. What this meant was that all those nations, with their minority governments, required outside support from Western powers in order to maintain their own position. It also meant that for say, Jordan, for example had no other choice but to be a US proxy as the borders of this new arrangement of states cut Jordan off from access to the Med or to the Arabian Gulf. This was in stark contrast to the "Greater Syria" that Abdullah I of Jordan proposed should exist in lieu of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920's, composed of Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and much of Iraq, which would've been a very large and powerful state that would've had far more independence than the western imperial powers were willing to grant them. Pure divide and rule.

In short, this series of "lines and maps" which looks on the surface to be irrational actually helped create the conditions that allowed for a network of clientalist regimes to exist for the next 100 years, enabling the Western powers (first France and Britain, then the USA) to have control of the vast natural resources in the area. These lines on maps have accomplished this spectacularly successfully, and continue to do so infact. When people write off those people who wrote Sykes-Picot as buffoons and idiots are making a big mistake, they were all extremely smart imperialists who knew what they were doing.

And you're right to make the comparison with Ulster, because the same logic was at work there, a minority protestant client state that was dependent on outside support to be viable. Israel's slightly different, as it didn't come into being until after the second world war, but you can see a similar logic at work there too, and it was also at work with the Hashemites in pre-Israel Palestinian manade era.

What is happening in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria today is an interlinked conflict merging into one cathartic unravelling of the post 1918 colonial boundary carve up. The religious and ethnic conflicts now playing bloodily out could well lead to a complete re-division of the boundaries of Syria/Lebanon/Iraq - with population transfers on a 1947 India/Pakistan scale eventually involved. To imagine that US Imperialism can manipulatively "put the lid back on this pot" easily or quickly, or at all, is to underestimate just how big a regional powderkeg is starting to reach explosion point . I think this regional conflict has a lot further to go, and a lot more blood to be spilt, before a new structure of stability emerges . I don't think any ceasefire deals with the Assad regime and the extremely diverse "oppositional forces" are going to put the deeply rooted regional fire out any time soon. If the "grand plan" of the US State Department was to create a Middle East filled with failed states, incapable of defending their oil reserves from US exploitation in its final 50 years or so of reserve life, they succeeded big-time - but the looming war of against all across the region could well end up destroying the very resource prize so much of the colonial/ and imperialist plots and alliances have been about since 1918. The out of control oil well fires of the fall of Saddam could soon be repeated right across the region. The Israeli strategists might be gleeful, but this conflict could yet consume them too.

Now this has been discussed before, is this the end of the Sykes-Picot? Remember it's not the first time that's been said - people have been talking about the collapse of Sykes-Picot since the 1950's and yet here we are. Remember Nasser? Remember when Gaddafi sent hundreds of Libyans running over the Egyptian border demanding the two states unify in 1972 with constitutions written in their own blood? Or again with Tunisia in 1974? Sykes-Picot survived all that. The Sykes-Picot arrangement has survived so long in spite of such of opposition, in spite of the fact this nation-state style system was in many ways a western imposition onto the Arab people, precisely because of what I said earlier - that the minority regimes that ran many of the countries in the region needed it to survive, their own survival depended on it's survival. That shouldn't be overlooked.

But I do think we're seeing this network of client states break down, and like you said US Imperialism can't just "put the lid back on the pot" this has got to play out, and it might take decades. A ceasefire with Assad here and now won't stop this from happening in the long term. This process is going to take decades to play out, and in the process there will be up ands and down for the US in this. And for all the talk of US's decline, don't forget that militarily they're still the leading world power by an order of magnitude. They'll pick and choose when they intervene in this process, and how they intervene, with more caution perhaps than during the 20th century, but fundamentally that military advantage is what makes all the difference. They'll use their military might to protect key strategic interests during the long drawn out process we're seeing take place, using it to shape how these events unfold.

 

[Delroy Booth]

whilst I'm here, should probably put this. Some of you might remember this report from mintpressnews which implicated the rebels, and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, of being responsible for the August 21st chemical weapons attack. http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnes...supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/

I thought it was suspect, just because of the way in which Bandar came up by name, but a few days ago Dale Gavlak (who was credited with authoring the article) released a statement claiming she never wrote the article. Worth quoting it in full:

http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/statement-by-dale-gavlak-on-mint-press.html

Mint Press News incorrectly used my byline for an article it published on August 29, 2013 alleging chemical weapons usage by Syrian rebels. Despite my repeated requests, made directly and through legal counsel, they have not been willing to issue a retraction stating that I was not the author. Yahya Ababneh is the sole reporter and author of the Mint Press News piece. To date, Mint Press News has refused to act professionally or honestly in regards to disclosing the actual authorship and sources for this story.

I did not travel to Syria, have any discussions with Syrian rebels, or do any other reporting on which the article is based. The article is not based on my personal observations and should not be given credence based on my journalistic reputation. Also, it is false and misleading to attribute comments made in the story as if they were my own statements.

This has already led to one Anti-War website that ran the story issuing an apology and retracting the story. I seem to remember Michael Moore's website also running the story, but no retractions there. A really weird one this. God knows what's actually gone on, but the developments are being followed in a lot of detail on this blog http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/

Should be a warning for everyone to take those kinds of reports, on all sides, with proper caution. It's really hard to work out what's going on Syria because of deliberate attempts to muddy the waters by the various great powers involved.

 

[Casually Red]

The US does intervene in the Mexican drug war - not directly with the military but by providing training and equipment to the Mexican government.

it was the instigator of it surely, the concept of a war on drugs being an american ideological construct .
Its also been covertly supplying large amounts of guns to the cartels .

eta

who are often highly trained and brutal special forces mercenaries from their previous interventions in Latin America, as well as the guys theyve been training in mexico in special forces tactics to fight the guys they trained in special forces tactics in guatemala and honduras.

you can see were this is going

oh and the mexican government are now talking about privatising their oil .

 

[Casually Red]

Can any pro-interventionists explain to me why the US should be intervening in Syria but not in the Mexican drug war? Many more people have died in the Mexican drug war than in the Syrian Civil War, and it's probably one of the few conflicts where deaths are often even more brutal than in Syria, and it's right there next to the US. Surely the American army should be intervening in DC to get America to implement some sensible drug laws or at least to stop the country arming the main combatants?

theyve armed and trained both sides as well as coming up with the policies for that war in the first place. The Iranian definition of them as the great satan doesnt seem that wide of the mark .

 

[camouflage]

Great interview here about the role of the UK in the destruction taking place in Syria. Start the war, escalate the war, feed the war.

http://dissentradio.com/radio/13_09_25_oneill.mp3

Reminds me of those medieval crusades or when the Pope would declare the ruler of a kingdom excommunicated and his kingdom up for grabs.

 

[teqniq]

This article has just appeared on my FB feed, anyone know anything about the provenance of the organisation running the story? I am working on the assumption that everyone had an agenda, here more than most. They extensively quote from a pdf produced by a nun called Mother Agnes Mariam de la Croix working for an interdenominational organisation called ISTeam.

Essentially the claim is that some of the evidence used to support the use of chemical weapons and thereby implicate the regime has been staged. The report and the article claim to have supporting photographic evidence. *note at no point do they claim that there was no chemical attack.

 

[Delroy Booth]

It really isn't, it's pretty much a conspiracy theorist infowars type site, chemtrails, 9/11 truth, vaccines conspiracies, allsorts of mad shit on there.
I even heard Rush Limbaugh quote from one of their articles the other day.

The report and the article are also appropriately Jazzz level bonkers. And the premise of these conspiracy theories - that they were staged to justify military intervention - is also growing increasingly untenable now military intervention has been called off.

 

[teqniq]

thanks

 

[Delroy Booth]

it's a weird one because it ostensibly looks like a respectable type of affair globalresearch at first glance, and they publish (re-publish, in a lot of cases actually) some socialist or anti imperialist articles that are ok. They scrape together this legitimate content and then intersperse it with a fine line in David Kelly and Bilderberg and conspiracies, 9/11 truth bullshit, or articles with incredible scaremongering titles like genetically modified babies and now this one claiming the reason why Dale Gavlak disowned the mintnewspress article wasn't because it was a desperate piece of fraud that had her name wrongly attached to it to lend it credibility, but because she's been got at by Prince Bandar (who else?) for exposing the tr00f about the false flag attack in Damascus.

So treat anything you read from there with appropriate caution.

 

[Idris2002]

it's a weird one because it ostensibly looks like a respectable type of affair globalresearch at first glance, and they publish (re-publish, in a lot of cases actually) some socialist or anti imperialist articles that are ok. They scrape together this legitimate content and then intersperse it with a fine line in David Kelly and Bilderberg and conspiracies, 9/11 truth bullshit, or articles with incredible scaremongering titles like genetically modified babies and now this one claiming the reason why Dale Gavlak disowned the mintnewspress article wasn't because it was a desperate piece of fraud that had her name wrongly attached to it to lend it credibility, but because she's been got at by Prince Bandar (who else?) for exposing the tr00f about the false flag attack in Damascus.

So treat anything you read from there with appropriate caution.

I wouldn't bother reading anything from there, for the reasons you outline.

 

[elbows]

For anyone wondering what the 'legit/mainstream' version of the Dale Gavlak fallout story is, there is this:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/20...linked-syrian-rebels-to-chemical-attack/?_r=0

And also this attempt to find out the background of the person who was the actual reporter on the ground for the original chemical weapons story:

http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2013/september/yahya-ababneh-exposed.htm#sthash.hGf3YY10.YSIhXx54.dpbs

 

[Delroy Booth]

Just thought I'd update with some interesting articles i've been reading on Syria. This is quite big news. yesterday in Aleppo, meaning a significant chunk of what was being called the Free Syrian Army has rejected working with the Syrian National Council, the umbrella organisation, and rejecting working with the US plan. Bad news for the Americans, it makes a ceasefire that little bit less likely. Well worth reading.

http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/major-rebel-factions-drop-exiles-go-full-islamist/

And here's an article a group of around 30 Swedish jihadis fighting in Syria that caught my eye, goes into the dynamic of the "homegrown" Jihadi quite well and it's quite interesting.

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-swedish-foreign-fighter-contingent-in-syria

 

[Casually Red]

This article has just appeared on my FB feed, anyone know anything about the provenance of the organisation running the story? I am working on the assumption that everyone had an agenda, here more than most. They extensively quote from a pdf produced by a nun called Mother Agnes Mariam de la Croix working for an interdenominational organisation called ISTeam.

Essentially the claim is that some of the evidence used to support the use of chemical weapons and thereby implicate the regime has been staged. The report and the article claim to have supporting photographic evidence. *note at no point do they claim that there was no chemical attack.

RT has been carrying the nuns reports, along with some of the photos . Im certainly not going to post them here but the examples I forced myself to look at do indicate that some dead children have been moved around from site to site to be photographed in different locations . I know that sounds absolutely nuts but the photos and videos, released by the rebels themselves, do seem to back that claim up . The same kids are definitely seen in different settings from what i can make out. Its pretty distressing . Its also a very distressing reality that there are countless numbers of kids that have either been kidnapped as hostages by rebels or being taken from refugee camps across the region for all manner of exploitation. Many have been seperated from their families by all sorts of circumstances and arent accounted for .Theres also a number of other issues raised by her team .

Heres one of the interviews with the nun .

http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-chemical-attack-children-staged-030/

 

[Divisive Cotton]

it's a weird one because it ostensibly looks like a respectable type of affair globalresearch at first glance, and they publish (re-publish, in a lot of cases actually) some socialist or anti imperialist articles that are ok. They scrape together this legitimate content and then intersperse it with a fine line in David Kelly and Bilderberg and conspiracies, 9/11 truth bullshit, or articles with incredible scaremongering titles like genetically modified babies and now this one claiming the reason why Dale Gavlak disowned the mintnewspress article wasn't because it was a desperate piece of fraud that had her name wrongly attached to it to lend it credibility, but because she's been got at by Prince Bandar (who else?) for exposing the tr00f about the false flag attack in Damascus.

So treat anything you read from there with appropriate caution.

There's a very good article here debunking a lot of the strange war claims. It pinpoints their source and how they seep into some of the mainstream media: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302606/assad-s-houla-propaganda-aymenn-jawad-al-tamimi

 

[gosub]

I posted the nun report after a bloke who noticed similar thing after an Israeli attack in Lebanon linked to it. In that instance iirc it was Hezbolla, who are on Assad's side, presumably Middle Eastern spin doctors are far more macabre than we are used to.

 

[Casually Red]

There's a very good article here debunking a lot of the strange war claims. It pinpoints their source and how they seep into some of the mainstream media: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302606/assad-s-houla-propaganda-aymenn-jawad-al-tamimi

It isnt and it doesnt.. It , for instance,claims that because the nun considers herself an arab, and syrian christians to be arabs, and Assad does too and has a pan arabist ideology then theyre on the same side. And therefore the nuns group can be discounted . As can her condemnations of Assads troops abuses. Thats absolute bonkers logic .

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Panorama tonight 10:35 might be worth watching.

 

[elbows]

I posted the nun report after a bloke who noticed similar thing after an Israeli attack in Lebanon linked to it. In that instance iirc it was Hezbolla, who are on Assad's side, presumably Middle Eastern spin doctors are far more macabre than we are used to.

This isn't a surprise, and is in part due to the nature and importance of propaganda in asymmetrical conflicts. Related phenomenon have been seen in, for example, the Palestinian struggle. Have to be a bit careful with judging the extent of it though because exposing this stuff often forms part of the propaganda of the other side.

 

[camouflage]

Interesting article here by Fisky...

For months now, pro-regime officials have explored how they might win the army defectors back to their side – and the growth of al-Nusra and other Islamist groups has certainly disillusioned many thousands of FSA men who feel that their own revolution against the government has been stolen from them. And in areas of Homs province, it is a fact that fighting between the FSA and the army has virtually ceased. In some government-held villages and towns the FSA are already present without being molested.

And the advantages to Assad are clear. If FSA men could be persuaded to return to the ranks of the regime’s army in complete safety, large areas of rebel-held territory would return to government control without a shot being fired. An army reinforced by its one-time deserters could then be turned against al-Nusra and its al-Qa’ida affiliates in the name of national unity.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Anyone watch?

 

[TomUS]

There's a very good article here debunking a lot of the strange war claims. It pinpoints their source and how they seep into some of the mainstream media: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302606/assad-s-houla-propaganda-aymenn-jawad-al-tamimi

I'd be suspicious of anything from NRO. But a more recent article in Der Spiegel also says beware of Assad propaganda, that it makes it's way into western media & exaggerates the role of foreign fighters. This contradicts common reports that about half the rebels are foreign.

There's a general tendency in the media for any story of a purported al-Qaida atrocity to get considerable coverage without any regard for fact-checking the story and its accuracy.

In the beginning, the Arabs tended to work primarily together with the Al-Nusra Front, but the situation changed in early 2013. The group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), initially made up of fighters from Iraq, quickly became a catch-all for foreigners. With 3,000 to 6,000 members, it is still relatively small compared to the Syrian rebel groups -- particularly the Free Syrian Army (FSA), with around 100,000 men --

Still, only a fraction of these jihadists are participating in actual battles -- ones that, at the moment, are largely focused on the provinces of Aleppo and Hama. Far more are building bases in the regions that have long-since been wrested from Assad's control.

There, they are trying to build bases of power, but they are also being confronted with bitter and successful resistance from local councils and rebels who fear they will be forced into submission by ISIS

http://www.spiegel.de/international...l-but-reports-often-exaggerated-a-924900.html

 

[camouflage]

Anyone watch?

Unfortunately no, out of the country at the moment. What was it about?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

You can watch it here for another year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03c7m8s/Panorama_Saving_Syrias_Children/

Synopsis:

In a special edition, Panorama travels with British doctors inside Syria to exclusively reveal the devastating impact of the war on children caught in the conflict. The doctors witness the aftermath of the bombing of a school by a suspected napalm-like incendiary device and medical facilities constantly under attack - both war crimes under international law. Filmed in the north of the country after the chemical weapons attack in Damascus which inflamed world opinion and brought America, Russia and the UN to the table, the film shows how the conventional war is intensifying with children bearing the brunt of this humanitarian catastrophe.