Thread: Syria News and Editorials

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Since your knowledge of the Iranian political system is right down there with your knowledge of technology,

right, because you are the expert on Iranian Politics?

as for your expertise on technology, your confusion of ROMs and Kernels and your inability to compile simple Linux kernels has been well noted.

Butters come back when you have anything useful to say on this thread. Do you even know who the players are?

What a fucking retard.

A report from the Syrian capital Damascus from 23/7/12

Originally Posted by OhOh

A report from the Syrian capital Damascus from 23/7/12

I can only assume you've lost your marbles as you appear to have retreated to page 3 in this thread where you deny any kind of government-sponsored (or indeed any) violence in Syria, which was the line your conspiracy theorist Voltaire Network was trotting out.

Why are you suddenly posting shit again?

Originally Posted by OhOh

Which of these so called representatives of the unarmed civilians would you say are worthy of running Syria?

I have no opinion. The point of liberating Syria from Assad and his murderers is - wait for it, just so it sinks in again - that ALL of the Syrian people can then have

FREE
AND
FAIR
ELECTIONS

And can choose who they want to run the country.

Is that simple enough for you to understand? It will probably go over Buttplug's head.

harry, maybe you should stick to Chavs politics in your own country

it's obvious that international conflicts dirty games are over your head ?

Syrian people having Free and Fair Election after Assad ? are you really that delusional and naive ? no, don't answer that one

Yes, like I said, it went over your empty little retarded fag head.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Why are you suddenly posting shit again?

The report is dated 23/7, it shows allegedly a calm Damascus, it shows that the reports of the terrorists gaining control of Damascus is false. I appreciate it doesn't confirm your alleged facts but it does confirm that the coordinated attack planned, directed, armed and trained by the crusader coalition terrorists have failed.

You post murky images of a smoke filled landscape.

You seem to be unaware that both sides are using weapons, the days when the unarmed civilians paraded for the cameras has long gone - probably disgusted by the take over by the terrorist butchers imported by the crusader coalition, but continue to claim the damage is only being caused by Syrian Government forces.

You seem to be unaware of the creative effort which goes into these so called live yutub videos.

You need to dig into the background of some of the leaders of the external groups you would allow to run Syria as puppets of the crusader coalition before you demand the removal of the present democratically elected Syrian government.

From

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NG28Ad02.html

"The initial candidate for the exalted role of transition leader is Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, who fled Syria amid widespread huzzahs a few weeks ago.

Tlass has been literally grooming himself for his role as popular leader for months, growing out his military haircut into a heroic Byronic mane prior to his defection.

His photographic prop is a big cigar, presumably to reinforce the image of manly leadership, and he issued a post-defection statement describing how his patriotic qualms concerning the Assad regime's brutal counter-insurgency operations had led to his sidelining from the military chain of command (and fortuitously exonerating him from implication in the worst excesses of regime forces).

He is also, apparently, France's great hope for clout in Syria, as this priceless excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor reveals:
Now, Mustafa [his father] and Tlass's sister, Nahed Ojjeh, are living in Paris, where Ms. Ojjeh is a prominent socialite who once dated a former French foreign minister.

"France has a longstanding relationship with the Tlass family, going back to the 1980s. Manaf's sister … throws lavish dinner parties and infiltrated the French political and media elites," says Mr. Bitar. "When she became the mistress of a foreign minister, there was a national security risk for France, but the president then chose to turn a blind eye because he felt there was need for backchannel diplomacy between France and the Assad regime.

"Given these old ties, France today might be thinking of grooming Manaf Tlass and counting on him to play an important role in the post-Assad transition phase."

Manaf Tlass is the foppish scion of a family of mysteriously wealthy and allegedly fornicating emigres and, by Syrian army standards, also a lightweight, owing his rank to his father, who once served as Assad's Minister of Defense. Despite that, he is emerging as Saudi Arabia's favored candidate as figurehead for the new Syria. Perhaps this is because Tlass, with his embrace of non-Islamist financial and moral values, would present a reassuring secularist face to the West while at the same time serving as a compliant accessory to Gulf interests.

However, Qatar appears comfortable with another high-level defector, one who also happens to be Sunni (as is Tlass), but was an important cog in the Assad machine and has hands-on experience with the nitty gritty of restoring order in a violent and dangerous set of circumstances.

The man is Nawaff al-Faris, formerly Syria's ambassador to Iraq. According to an interlocutor communicating with the As'ad AbuKhalil's Angry Arab blog, Ambassador Nawaff is quite a piece of work, having earned his bones with the Ba'ath regime as battalion commander during the legendary Hama massacre of 1982, the action that routed the Muslim Brotherhood from Syria at the cost of around 20,000 lives in that one city:

"I know about this man, nawaf al-faris, the defecting ambassador of syria to iraq, from the ... the hama area. Hama people remember him well. He was commanding one of the battallions that committed atrocities there in 1982, and i heard it from hama and halab older people (now dead) that he personally threw 16 young boys youngest was 6, from the the rooftop of a building before their parents' eyes.

…he was very close to the regime, as much as the tlass clan, except that he commands a larger following among bedouins in the euphrates area…his flight through qatar, rather than turkey, means that the qataris have big plans for him in post-assad syria. you will hear his name again. a very very dirty and cruel man."

Nawaff might be a good choice in the eyes of Qatar, but installing one of the butchers of Hama would presumably not be the kind of Arab Spring triumph that the West is looking for in Syria. So perhaps the search will continue for a more suitable candidate, while hoping that the remorseless grind of violence, sanctions, and anger will finally crack the power of the Assad regime. "

Does Assad think his finger is on the button?

This could mean maximising the cost of Syria's downfall for all her adversaries, at home and abroad. In a final act of callous vindictiveness, the regime would destroy as many as possible as it perishes.
The effects of such a downfall, like nuclear radiation, might live on for years to come with tens of thousands dead and displaced and many wounds to heal.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Yes, like I said, it went over your empty little retarded fag head.

now that's rich from someone who can't even compile his own Linux kernel,

Originally Posted by OhOh

the new way of "democracy" in the west - multiple elections/referenda until the "right" answer/government is elected. Free and Fair my arse.

the west has become a parody of itself, soon the Chinese and Russian will look more democratic than we were

Originally Posted by OhOh

You seem to be unaware of the creative effort which goes into these so called live yutub videos.

The only creative effort is in getting them out to the world without being executed.

And you've falling back into posting videos off Voltaire, the fairy story "US government organised 9/11" network. So please don't talk about creativity, those arseholes were decrying the people's revolution right from the start, even sending their "journalists" to kiss Assad's arse. How you have the gall to even call that journalism I have no idea, it disgusts me.

You need to dig into the background of some of the leaders of the external groups you would allow to run Syria as puppets of the crusader coalition before you demand the removal of the present democratically elected Syrian government.

I have dug into the background, and as far as I know they would probably get more votes in Syria than Assad - If they were ever allowed to stand, and the people were actually allowed out of their villages to vote.

I've already posted enough detail of Assad's constitutional changes - which guarantee him staying in power - to not even bother going through them again, if you think the last Syrian elections were fair, you're obviously believing all this voltaire shit.

As for the situation in Damascus, yes it would seem repeated use of thousands of troops pulled back from Golan, along with helicopter gunships, has quashed the battle in Damascus for now.

And their use in Aleppo, along with fighter jets, will probably neuter the Syrian people's opposition there as well.

It's a long way from over, but the die is cast. Assad will go one way or the other, the only question is how many of his people will he kill while he tries to cling on to power. 17,000 and rising is the latest estimate, I wouldn't be surprised if it's higher, as only Assad and his military really know where all the bodies are buried.

Assad forces pound Aleppo rebels as world braces for ‘massacre’

Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Mariam Karouny
AMMAN/BEIRUT — Reuters
Published Friday, Jul. 27 2012, 1:25 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Jul. 27 2012, 1:41 PM EDT






President Bashar al-Assad’s artillery pounded rebel-held areas in and around Aleppo on Friday in preparation for an onslaught on Syria’s biggest city where the United States has said it fears a “massacre” may be imminent.
Opposition sources said the shelling, which follows intensive ground and air bombardment, was an attempt to drive fighters inside Aleppo from their strongholds and to stop their comrades outside the city from resupplying them.

“They are shelling at random to instil a state of terror,” said Anwar Abu Ahed, a rebel commander outside the city.
The battle for Aleppo, a major power centre that is home to 2.5 million people, is being seen as a potential turning point in the 16-month uprising against Mr. al-Assad that could give one side an edge in a conflict where both the rebels and the government have struggled to gain the upper hand.
A rebel commander said insurgents had attacked a convoy of Syrian army tanks heading towards the city, as the government continued to redeploy forces from other parts of the country to bolster its forces there.
The fate of Syria itself – an ethnically fragmented nation of 22 million people – is likely to determine the future of the wider region for years to come amid fears that its own sectarian tensions could spill across borders.
The U.S. State Department said credible reports of tank columns moving on Aleppo, along with air strikes by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, represented a serious escalation of Mr. al-Assad’s efforts to crush his opponents.
“This is the concern: that we will see a massacre in Aleppo, and that’s what the regime appears to be lining up for,” Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said.
Turkey, a former ally of Mr. al-Assad and now one of his fiercest critics, cheered on the rebels in Aleppo.
“In Aleppo itself the regime is preparing for an attack with its tanks and helicopters ... my hope is that they’ll get the necessary answer from the real sons of Syria,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks broadcast on Turkish TV channels.
As the remaining residents of Aleppo braced themselves for more bloodshed, General Robert Mood, the outgoing head of the U.N. monitoring mission, told Reuters he thought Mr. al-Assad’s days in power were numbered.
“In my opinion it is only a matter of time before a regime that is using such heavy military power and disproportional violence against the civilian population is going to fall,” the Norwegian general, who left Damascus on July 19, said.
Navay Pillay, the United Nations human rights chief, said a pattern had emerged as Mr. al-Assad’s forces resorted to shelling, tank fire and door-to-door searches.
“All this, taken along with the reported build-up of forces in and around Aleppo, bodes ill for the people of that city,” she said in statement.
Government troops stationed on the outskirts of the city unleashed barrages of heavy-calibre mortar rounds on its western districts, while Russian-built MI-25 helicopter gunships struck in the east, opposition activists inside the city said.
The heavy fighting follows an audacious bomb attack on July 18 that killed four of Mr. al-Assad’s closest lieutenants in Damascus, a development that led some analysts to speculate that the government’s grip was slipping.
In the first reported casualty on Friday, a man of about 60 wearing a traditional white prayer, outfit was killed near a park in Aleppo, while fighting spread across several neighbourhoods.
A dawn bombardment killed five people who had been sheltering in a vegetable market. Video footage posted by opposition activists showed people gathering up the victims’ body parts in plastic bags.
On Thursday, thirty-four people were killed in and around Aleppo, according to opposition activists, in an uprising that has cost the lives of 18,000 people across the country.
“The rebels have so far been nimble, and civilians have mostly been the victims of the bombardment,” said activist Abu Mohammad al-Halabi, speaking by phone from the city.
Majed al-Nour, another activist, said rebels had attacked a security outpost in the neighbourhood of Bustan al-Joz, which is close to Aleppo’s city centre, on Thursday.
“The rebels are present in the east and west of the city, and have a foothold in areas of the centre. The regime forces control the entrances of Aleppo and the main thoroughfares and commercial streets and are bombarding the residential districts that fell into rebel hands,” he said.
Mr. al-Nour said tens of thousands of people had fled Aleppo to nearby northern rural regions close to Turkey.
In the city, rebels have detained at least 100 Syrian officers, soldiers and pro-government militiamen this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, said.
A video posted on YouTube showed rebels with Kalashnikovs from “The Tawheed (monotheism) Brigade” guarding the detainees, who were lined up on a school playground.
In Damascus on Friday, four helicopters flew over southern areas of the capital, firing heavy machine guns into the districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamon as well as into the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, a resident said.
“I can see two above me right now, heading towards Hajar al-Aswad,” she said by telephone, the pounding of guns audible in the background. The helicopters were flying low and appeared to be targeting specific buildings.
Opposition sources said Syrian troops and armour entered Hajr al-Aswad on Friday, pursuing a counter-attack against rebel fighters that began last week.
With UN Security Council resolutions for sanctions against Syria vetoed by Russia and China for a third time last week, the United States has said it is stepping up assistance to Syria’s fractured opposition, though it remains limited to non-lethal supplies such as communications gear and medical equipment.
Reuters has learned that the White House has crafted a presidential directive, called a “finding,” that would authorise greater covert assistance for the rebels, but stop short of arming them.
It is unclear whether President Barack Obama has signed the document, a highly classified authorisation for covert activity.
A Syrian parliamentarian, Ikhlas al-Badawi, from the northern province of Aleppo said on Friday she had fled to Turkey, becoming the first member of the rubber-stamp assembly dominated by Assad’s Baath Party to defect.
Meanwhile, a source close to the mediation effort told Reuters on Friday that international mediator Kofi Annan was still trying to forge a political solution to the Syria crisis despite being made a scapegoat for the failure of the two sides to agree.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply concerned about reports that Syria could use chemical weapons and demanded that the government should state it would not use them “under any circumstances”.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Syrian government assault on Aleppo was an “utterly unacceptable escalation” of the conflict.

Good to see Wicked Willie chuck out another "utterly unacceptable", I'm sure Assad will be rolling his eyes in laughter, sorry I mean giving deep thought to his actions.

Opening fire on fleeing civilians, lovely people. Congratulations to the Jordanians for trying to protect them. I hope they killed a few of the murderers.

Jordanian, Syrian forces trade fire as tensions rise along border


27 July 2012, 04:33 (GMT+05:00)



Jordanian and Syrian forces traded gunfire along the shared border early Friday morning in what marked the latest escalation of tensions between Amman and Damascus, dpa reported.
According to a Jordanian security source, "brief" clashes broke out between the two armies in the Tal Al Sihab region after Syrian forces opened fire on a group of some 300 refugees attempting to flee into Jordan, mistakenly targeting Jordanian forces in the process.
Jordanian military forces returned gunfire, said the source, igniting a fierce 10-minute-long battle between the two sides.
Saudi Arabian news network Al Arabiya reported that two Jordanian soldiers were injured during the confrontation, a claim both the source and Jordanian officials denied.
Jordanian government spokesman Smaih Maaytah denied that any clashes broke out between the two sides, stressing that Syrian regime forces opened fire on refugees close to the Jordanian border, injuring several, including one child who died upon arrival at a hospital in the Jordanian border city of Ramtha.
Friday morning's incident marks the first full-scale clashes between Syria and Jordan and comes one week after Amman announced a military state of alert in the border region.
Damascus has carried out a months-long military clampdown in the border region to prevent the flight of soldiers' relatives into Jordan. Activists claim that keeping the family members in Syria remains the regime's only leverage to prevent en mass military defections.
Although dozens of Syrians have been fatally injured in their attempts to cross into Jordan, the campaign has failed to slow down a refugee influx that has topped some 1,000 people per day.
The issue of refugees has become an emerging point of contention between Amman and Damascus, with Jordan having granted refuge to some 150,000 Syrians since the start of the conflict, including army defectors and opposition activists.

You wonder why some countries belive that shelling terrorists is acceptable.

An article from the UK guardian newspaper from 2005.

Mike Marqusee: The destruction of Falluja was an act of barbarism that ranks alongside My Lai, Guernica and Halabja | World news | The Guardian

"One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him."
The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities.

As the siege tightened, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city - which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were non-combatants.

On November 8, 10,000 US troops, supported by 2,000 Iraqi recruits, equipped with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter gunships, blasted their way into a city the size of Leicester. It took a week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory was claimed.

The city's main hospital was selected as the first target, the New York Times reported, "because the US military believed it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties". An AP photographer described US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans."

The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous. "Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines.

The US claims that 2,000 died, most of them fighters. Other sources disagree. When medical teams arrived in January they collected more than 700 bodies in only one third of the city. Iraqi NGOs and medical workers estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians - a proportionately higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz.

The collective punishment inflicted on Falluja - with logistical and political support from Britain - was largely masked by the US and British media, which relied on reporters embedded with US troops. The BBC, in particular, offered a sanitised version of the assault: civilian suffering was minimised and the ethics and strategic logic of the attack largely unscrutinised.

Falluja proved to be yet another of the war's phantom turning points. Violent resistance spread to other cities. In the last two months, Tal-Afar, Haditha, Husaybah - all alleged terrorist havens heavily populated by civilians - have come under the hammer. Falluja is still so heavily patrolled that visitors have described it as "a giant prison". Only a fraction of the promised reconstruction and compensation has materialised.

Like Jallianwallah Bagh, Guernica, My Lai, Halabja and Grozny, Falluja is a place name that has become a symbol of unconscionable brutality. As the war in Iraq claims more lives, we need to ensure that this atrocity - so recent, so easily erased from public memory - is recognised as an example of the barbarism of nations that call themselves civilised."

Once again, I do not agree with what happened in Fallujah, and this is a thread on Syria. Post this in the Iraq forum where it belongs.

There are no Americans in Syria shelling civilian areas, so please stick to the fucking topic, you windbag.

Syria's regime will remain even if Assad resigns




According to Norwegian Major General Robert Mood, former head of the UN observer team to Syria, the problems in Syria won't simply disappear if president Bashar al-Assad resigns.


"The regime will most likely prevail for some time," says Mood, who left Syria this week, after it becaame clear that the two sides in the conflict did not want to make use of the observer team.
According to Mood, the Syria regime is complex, and consists of more elements than just the president. Even if Assad were to step down, this won't change the big picture immediately, he tells NRK. There are powerful people behind him whose interest is to remain in power, Mood says.
President Bashar al-Assad, his brother Maher and the four people who were killed in the assassination two weeks ago were the most central leaders of Syria, Mood explains. The four people who took over the most central positions, in addition to the president and his brother, are now controlling the regime Mood says.
The Major General suggests being cautious in assuming that simply removing Assad will solve the problem. "It is far more complicated than that, and there are people around him that have a significant influence on the choices he does and does not make," says Mood.
According to Mood, the regime is also still much stronger than the opposition and has great military powers that they haven't yet used. "The balance of power will not be shaken at this time. But if entire departments or brigades, several hundred men, move over to the opposition there will be a different situation that may lead to the fall of the regime," he points out.
What concerns the Major General is the many months, maybe even a year, of violence that still lie ahead. "Violence that could be even worse than what we see today." He explains to NRK that one of the most frustrating things he experienced as the head of the observation force was the regime's complete lack of understanding of the extensive use of violence.
Although Mood says he was happy to have had the opportunity to take on the mission in Syria, he left the country with split feelings. "I have several friends, both Syrians and people in the observer force, who are still on the ground. That's why it didn't feel completely right to leave Syria, he says.
"The parties in Syria were given tools that could have been used for a political and peaceful dialogue. Instead, they chose to fight," the major concludes.

When is it going to sink into your head that the Syrian people want a new leader because the current one is a murderous dictator?

The only interest they have in the West is getting their help, because Assad has all the decent weaponry.

You do talk some tripe, you should try reading some Middle East press written by Arabs instead of this French, Russian and Hans Christian Andersen nonsense.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

When is it going to sink into your head that the Syrian people want a new leader because the current one is a murderous dictator?

we can only assume that you conducted yourself a poll on that topic and went on the ground to ask that very question to the Syrian people ?

what a sad little racist chav you make harry, completely ignorant and clueless, typical of poorly educated British traits I might add,

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

When is it going to sink into your head that the Syrian people want a new leader

I have no doubt that SOME Syrians would like a new regime. In the last count the Syrians voted to continue with what they had.

What is distasteful to me is their methodology. I am also appalled at the crusader coalition comments and actions by once again presuming to know what a country wants and encouraging the poor Syrian cannon fodder to continue the futile action.