Syria News and Editorials

**OhOh** · 15-03-2012, 06:42 AM

But the pictures of the burning rubble are all caused by the Syrian Government forces, not one is a terrorist blowing themselves up, a missile fired by a terrorist, a car bomb ignited by a terrorist. There are also no terrorist snipers, no terrorist victims. get on message please.

They are all sunday school preachers of the most finest kind, don't ya know folks!

**ENT** · 16-03-2012, 02:00 PM

Agreement on Humanitarian Aid for Syria.

The UN has said it will send a humanitarian mission to Syria this weekend to assess the situation there.

Its team will be part of a delegation led by the Syrian government, which will also include staff from the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation.

The group will visit key opposition towns including Homs, Hama and Deraa.

The announcement comes on the first anniversary of the uprising against the Syrian regime, which to date has claimed more than 8,000 lives.

BBC News - UN to send humanitarian mission to Syria

Meanwhile;
The Guardian newspaper in London has published details of more than 3,000 documents that Syrian opposition activists claim are emails downloaded from private accounts belonging to Syria's first couple.

The emails appear to show that Mr Assad received advice from Iran on several occasions during the year since the Syrian uprising began. In December a Lebanese businessman, Hussein Mortada, who has connections to Iran, apparently urged Mr Assad to stop blaming al-Qaeda for a double car bombing in Damascus.

Mr Mortada wrote: "I have received contacts from Iran and Hezbollah and they directed me not to mention al-Qaeda is behind the operation. It is a blatant tactical media mistake."

Allegedly Mayassa al-Thani
Daughter of emir of Qatar
There was also some forthright advice at the end of last year to the president's wife, Asma, from a daughter of the emir of Qatar, Mayassa al-Thani. She appears to have written: "The opportunity for real change and development was lost a long time ago. Nevertheless, one opportunity closes, others open up - and I hope it's not too late for reflection and coming out of the state of denial."

Also;

By early February, when opposition fighters in the Syrian city of Homs were under siege from government forces, Mrs Assad was apparently browsing the internet for luxury shoes, and writing to her friends about 16cm (6in) high heels that cost more than $5,000 (£3,200).

BBC News - 'Assad emails' shed light on Syrian leader's private life

**OhOh** · 16-03-2012, 10:28 PM

^Why a second visit, didnt they go last week?

Any evidence that the "assitance" was required or acted upon?

Women talk to each other and buy shoes, now that's earth shattering news i must admit

**OhOh** · 17-03-2012, 11:06 AM

Syrian Arab news agency - SANA - Syria : Syria news ::

In a national scene conveying a message to the whole world of the Syrian people's commitment to national unity away from foreign interferences and dictates, millions of Syrians on Thursday streamed into the homeland's streets and squares throughout the provinces in a global march for Syria.

Waving Syrian flags and banners with national slogans on them, the jubilant participants voiced rejection of foreign interference in the Syrian people's internal affairs and support to the comprehensive reform program led by President Bashar al-Assad to build the renewed Syria.

**OhOh** · 17-03-2012, 11:11 AM

Whilst the crusader coalition and the PGCC offer weapons and the UNHRC "inspection" visits, some countries send aid.

Fars News Agency :: Iran Sends Second Cargo of Humanitarian Aid to Syria

"TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran dispatched a second cargo of humanitarian aid to Syria to help the people in the Muslim country, who are facing a shortage of food and medical supplies.

The 40-ton shipment, which included medicines, blankets, tents, medical tools and dialysis equipment, arrived in the Syrian capital city of Damascus on Thursday.

Also on Thursday, the crisis-hit Syria received the first batch of humanitarian aids sent by Iran's Red Crescent Society.

Iran's Red Crescent Society announced on Wednesday that the supplies are sent in response to a call by the Syrian Red Crescent Society.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country. "

**ENT** · 18-03-2012, 05:38 AM

Originally Posted by OhOh

^Why a second visit, didnt they go last week?

Any evidence that the "assitance" was required or acted upon?

Women talk to each other and buy shoes, now that's earth shattering news i must admit

The echo of Marie Antoinette's, "Give them cake."

As for 'evidence", read your own posted news clips as well as others'.

**harrybarracuda** · 18-03-2012, 10:22 AM

You go to war against your own people and they will go to war against you.

Well done, Assad, your desperate clinging on to power is creating a civil war.

Two bomb blasts killed at least 27 people in Syria’s capital, Damascus, yesterday, igniting official anger at Arab opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
State TV said the early-morning “terrorist” attacks, apparently car bombings timed minutes apart, had targeted police headquarters and air-force intelligence offices.
The dead were mainly civilians. The injured included 140 civilians and security personnel, the Interior Ministry said.
As angry Damascus residents vented their fury at Arab supporters of anti-regime activists, the state broadcaster ran footage of a charred body inside the mangled remains of a smouldering vehicle.
The other blast gutted the facade of a multistory building. The TV channel broadcast images of wrecked apartments and blood-splattered streets.
TV commentators blamed Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Assad’s fiercest Arab critics over his regime’s deadly crackdown on dissent since March 2011. Both countries have called for rebels to be armed.

**harrybarracuda** · 18-03-2012, 10:25 AM

By FAWAZ TURKI
Behind the evil of Syria’s regime

Does evil have any bounds? Do its perpetrators recognize limits to its exercise? In Syria last Sunday, it became evident that to the Baathist regime there, the answer is an emphatic no. Evil has legs and it travels as far as it wants to go.
What took place on that day was an unspeakable atrocity beyond all rational understanding, possibly the worst in the year-long Syrian uprising: Dozens of innocent men, women and children were slaughtered in the Homs Sunni neighborhood of Karm el-Zeitoun by soldiers and armed government thugs, known as shabiha. They were randomly picked, shot and stabbed. Other victims had their houses burned down with bodies left under the rubble. This came soon after a month-long siege during which the city was bombarded mercilessly, resulting in the death of countless civilians who had cowered in their homes with little food, water, heat and medicine, many dying of unattended wounds.
The regime admitted the killings happened, but obscenely attributed them to “armed gangs,” the term it routinely uses for its opponents, who allegedly “filmed the bodies of their victims” in order to shore up rebel calls for “foreign interference in Syria.” In other words, don’t deny the crime, but deny the criminality of the perpetrator.
What is the source of this gratuitous violence, constituting by all counts a crime against humanity, inflicted on citizens by their own government? Surely there is more to it than the claim that Bashar Assad, the Syrian president, is responding to some Freudian impulse in him to outdo his dad, the late Hafez Assad, who exactly 30 years ago unleashed his military forces on the rebellious town of Hama where, in an operation lasting less than two weeks, they reportedly killed as many as 20,000 people and turned many of the town’s ancient neighborhoods into rubble. You may, if you wish, dismiss the Freudan angle here as wanton psychologizing. But one thing is plain: The Baathist regime under the rule of the Assad dynasty over the last 42 years has so normalized the practice of ruthlessness, cruelty and unrelenting repression that the unthikable, the heinous — say, torturing 8-year-old kids — becomes a routine act accepted as the way things are done.
After a while, a whole community is socialized to go along, its traditional attributes of compassion, morality and justice overwhelmed by the exercise of pervasive evil. As the German philosopher Hannah Arendt showed in her 1963 seminal work, The Banality of Evil, in history the diffusion of evil — of the murderous and profane kind directed at Syrians today — is not executed by fanatics and pschopaths but rather by ordinary men. These ordinary men, morphing into sadists, make an abstraction of the human beings they torture, maim and kill. Degrading the “other” while still assuming the mantle of being human yourself develops in close-knit reciprocity.
And Bashar Assad, an ophthalmologist, is indeed an “ordinary” man, complete with a pedestrian mind, driven to deny a hard truth, in this case that his people revile him, rather than face it, even if that means having to resort to repression to do it. But the constant infliction of repression on a society cannot be tolerated indefinitely, for it goes against the grain of the human condition. Patriotic rhetoric and Patrick Henry aside, there comes a time when a repressed community, gasping for breath, will collectively holler: Give me liberty or give me death.
To cite but a few cases in point, consider the numerous peasant revolts in pre-revolutionary France, the Continentals who fought against British colonialism in America in the 1770s, The Boxer Rebellion in China around the turn of the 20th Century, the April Rising in Ireland in 1916 and, closer to home, the Intifada in Palestine in 1987. When a regime is rotten, unjust or unresponsive to your collective needs, you will in due course rise up against it, and you do so with the knowledge that, after all, “this land is my land.”
“This country belongs to the people who inhabit it,” said Abraham Lincoln about the need for Americans to be active participants in, not passive observers of their historical experience. “Whenever they grow weary of the existing government, they should exercise their constitutional right to overthrow it.” Ideally with ballots, but as a last resort with bullets.
Lincoln may as well have been referring to the Arab Spring in general and the Syrian uprising in particular. For Syrian rebels it boils down to this: If we can’t choose the way we live, we will choose the way we die. And for those of us on the outside looking in, it’s a crime not to lend these folks a helping hand, and do it as individuals, communities and governments. Lest we forget, we are all complicit in that which leaves us indifferent.

— The author is a journalist living in Washington and the author of several books, including “The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile.” His e-mail address is disinherited@yahoo.com.

**ENT** · 18-03-2012, 10:41 AM

As the saying goes, you can tread on a worm 'till it turns.

("Worm" being the Norse word "orm" for snake).

This worm will bite Assad's heel, if not his arse.

**OhOh** · 18-03-2012, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You go to war against your own people and they will go to war against you.

Well done, Assad, your desperate clinging on to power is creating a civil war.

and from the "Analysis: A debate over autonomy in Thailand's restive south" thread

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

“There may come a day when the troubles of the south will become the troubles of the region as a whole. And I dare say this, it might become a magnet for people to create havoc from elsewhere,” said Asif Ahmad, British ambassador to Thailand.

No shit, Sherlock.

If Thailand wants to concede territory to be run by muslim terrorist gangsters, as it is in the Southern Philippines, then go ahead.

Otherwise put them down like dogs or kick them over the border into Malyasia where they can live a happy and halal life.

This middle ground is not a solution, the mussies have one mission and one mission only: victory. They will not stop attracting terrorist aid and trying to frighten or exterminate Thais out of Southern Thailand.

You have to draw the line somewhere.

Just a question of whether or not you have the balls to do it.

A similarity in the "problem" but a variation in your solution?

**harrybarracuda** · 19-03-2012, 03:58 AM

Where is the similarity? The Syrian MAJORITY want to run their own country, not establish a state within a state.

The majority of Thais are Buddhist, did you not know?

**OhOh** · 19-03-2012, 04:48 AM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The Syrian MAJORITY want to run their own country

Based on what criteria?

**harrybarracuda** · 19-03-2012, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The Syrian MAJORITY want to run their own country

Based on what criteria?

Based on Assad slaughtering the Sunnis rather than giving them a free vote. Are you always so blindly obtuse?

**OhOh** · 19-03-2012, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The Syrian MAJORITY want to run their own country

Based on what criteria?

Based on Assad slaughtering the Sunnis rather than giving them a free vote. Are you always so blindly obtuse?

Some probably voted recently in the constitution referendum. Are the returns marked with a box for their religion, or do you have information which would corroborate your assumption?

**harrybarracuda** · 20-03-2012, 02:55 AM

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The Syrian MAJORITY want to run their own country

Based on what criteria?

Based on Assad slaughtering the Sunnis rather than giving them a free vote. Are you always so blindly obtuse?

Some probably voted recently in the constitution referendum. Are the returns marked with a box for their religion, or do you have information which would corroborate your assumption?

Google "Syria religious demographics" and I doubt you'll find much variance from the following.

It's already been posted in this thread, so once again you are rather boringly repeating your own questions. Do you have Alzheimers?

Sunni Muslim 74% (includes Turks and most Kurds), Shia Muslim (predominantly Alawites but also including others such as Ismailis) 13%, Christian (various Churches) 10%, Druze 3%

Meanwhile, in Damascus:

AMMAN — Rebels battled government forces in Damascus on Monday, in the most violent clashes Syria's capital has seen since the start of the year-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
Putting further pressure on the Syrian authorities, ally Russia backed a call by the International Committee of the Red Cross for daily, two-hour ceasefires to allow for life-saving humanitarian operations in areas worst-hit by the uprising.
Two days after a double car bombing killed nearly 30 in the city, Monday's gunfight near the centre of Assad's power base appeared to be an attempt by rebels to show they still pose a serious challenge after being forced out of Homs and Idlib.
On Monday, rebel forces in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor also came under attack. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR)said army defectors bombed a security convoy in the southern region of Deraa, killing eight and wounding 27.
There were differing accounts of the violence in Damascus, which erupted shortly after midnight in the upmarket al-Mezze district, home to many embassies and security facilities.
The SOHR said up to six rebels had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the house of an army general before taking refuge in a building which was then the focus of a fierce gunfight.
The official Syrian news agency Sana said the authorities had stormed a "terrorist hideout" and that three rebels and one member of the security forces were killed in the raid.
"These clashes were the most violent and the closest to the security force headquarters in Damascus since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution," said SOHR director Rami Abdulrahman.
Video footage showed the top two floors of an apartment block scorched by fire, its walls pitted with bullet holes. Reports from Syria cannot be independently verified because the authorities have barred access to rights groups and journalists.
The SOHR later reported clashes between government forces and rebels in Qaboun, in northeast Damascus, saying three explosions were heard. In the northern district of Barzeh, more gunfire could be heard as police carried out raids.
The armed confrontation came just two days after two car bombs killed a total of at least 27 people in the heart of the city, in a sign that the capital, once apparently immune to the bloodshed, might be starting to sink into the mayhem.
CEASEFIRES
Assad is fighting for the survival of his family dynasty, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades, and has rejected calls from much of the West and the Arab world to quit.
He has received staunch backing in the UN Security Council from Russia and China. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday threw its weight behind an ICRC call for daily ceasefires — an idea the Syrian authorities had previously resisted.
"(Russia and the ICRC) called on the Syrian government and all armed groups who oppose it to agree without delay to daily humanitarian pauses," the ministry said after a meeting between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and ICRC head Jakob Kellenberger.
The United Nations says more than 8,000 people have died in 12 months of turmoil and some 230,000 forced to flee their homes. The government says about 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed and rejects allegations of brutality, saying it faces a foreign-backed "terrorist" insurgency.
Moscow and Beijing have twice vetoed UN Security Council resolutions that condemned Syria's yearlong assault on rebels.
In an attempt to forge international unity on the issue, diplomats said France would submit a statement supporting UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's on-going peace efforts in Syria thereby sending a strong message to Assad to end the violence.
It will not be a formal resolution, which carries legal weight, but rather a "presidential statement", which is generally non-binding but still needs unanimous backing.
Veteran diplomat Annan dispatched a team of five experts to Damascus on Monday to discuss his proposals to deploy international monitors in Syria to try to stem the bloodshed.
A separate team of experts from the United Nations and the Organization for Islamic Co-operation, led by the Syrian government, also started a mission to assess humanitarian needs, a source close to the mission said on Monday.
SECTARIAN STRIFE
Assad's troops have won back much lost ground from rebel control in recent weeks, but the violence has not abated and analysts warn the uprising could degenerate into civil war, pitting Assad's minority Alawite sect against the Sunnis, who make up 75 per cent of the 23-million population.
That it turn would add to strains along the Middle East's sectarian divide, pitting Assad's backer Iran, and Tehran's Shiite allies in Lebanon and Iraq, against the Sunni powers which dominate Arab governments from Egypt to the Gulf.
Witnesses said pro-Assad forces stormed the eastern tribal Sunni Muslim city of Deir al-Zor on Monday to seize areas previously held by the Free Syrian Army - a lightly armed and disparate resistance force led by army defectors.
At least one civilian, named as 60-year-old Adnan Khalifa, died in the assault, residents told Reuters.
"I heard the sound of several explosions. They could be tanks firing their guns or rebels using dynamite to try and slow down their advance," Tareq, one of the residents, said, speaking by phone from the city, which lies on the road to Iraq.
SANA reported that 13 civilians were shot dead by opposition "terrorists" near Syria's third largest city Homs on Sunday and said rebels had also destroyed a railway bridge linking Damascus to Deraa.
Turkey has raised the prospect of setting up a "buffer zone" in Syria to protect those trying to flee. Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Department said on Monday 279 Syrians had crossed the border between March 18-19, bring the total number of Syrian refugees in the country to 16,446.
© Copyright (c) Reuters

**ENT** · 20-03-2012, 06:33 AM

Syria negotiated with Al Qaeda affiliate to assassinate Lebanese Druze leader Jumblatt
MARCH 19, 2012 ⋅ 4:45 PM ⋅

The Al-Qaeda affiliated Abdallah Azzam Brigades on Saturday issued a statement that Syria “offered to release some of our Jihadist leaders imprisoned in the jails of the Syrian regime in exchange for assassinating Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt.” No further details were offered.

More;
Syria negotiated with Al Qaeda affiliate to assassinate Lebanese Druze leader Jumblatt | Ya Libnan | World News Live from Lebanon

Syria divides Druze in occupied mountain homeland.

Reuters
11:13 a.m. CDT, March 14, 2012

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (Reuters) - Kameel Khater's friends used to creep out at night to spray anti-Israeli slogans on the walls of their village in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. These days they have a different target for their graffiti - the government of near neighbor Syria.

Khater, 35, is one of about 10,000 Druze from the village of Majdal Shams, traditionally a bastion of supporters of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria.

More;
Syria divides Druze in occupied mountain homeland - chicagotribune.com

Further;
Lebanon's Druze chief Walid Jumblatt openly sided with the anti-regime camp in Syria on Friday

Lebanon's Druze chief Walid Jumblatt openly sided with the anti-regime camp in Syria on Friday as he marked the 35th anniversary of his father's assassination, which he has blamed on Damascus.
"After 35 years, this is the day to tell the truth, to myself and to others ... Long live free Syria!" he said after spreading a "Syrian revolution" flag over the grave of his father, Kamal Jumblatt.
He also hailed the "marytrs of the Syrian revolution" in a speech before dignitaries at Baaklin, in the Shouf mountains southeast of Beirut, after the memorial at the cemetery in nearby Mukhtara.
"The Syrian people will stay but dictators will go," said Jumblatt.

More;
Lebanon Druze head throws lot in with Syria rebels - Yahoo! News

**OhOh** · 20-03-2012, 09:46 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ng-sprees.html

"Asma al-Assad, the British-born wife of the Syrian president, will be added to a European Union sanctions blacklist later this week after details of her online shopping sprees were revealed by leaked emails

"A number of family members will be added to the list," said a diplomatic source."

That's certainly a game changer, a woman who shops. No pictures of her two children, who will added to the list along with her Father and the nanny no doubt.

**harrybarracuda** · 20-03-2012, 10:51 AM

^ Don't be such an idiot. It's obviously to stop her own vast network of personal accounts and accumulated wealth (all stolen from the Syrian people) to be used to funnel money to the murderous regime of her husband.

Could you not work that out on your own?

**harrybarracuda** · 20-03-2012, 11:31 AM

Interesting softening on Russia's diplomatic stance, obviously to deflect criticism of them being the ones continuing to arm and support Assad's regime in its onslaught against Homs, Idlib, etc.

I don't really care how cynical they are being as long as it does some good.

Russia urges Syria truce

Posted on » Tuesday, March 20, 2012

MOSCOW: Russia yesterday urged Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and rebels to agree to daily humanitarian truces, backing an initiative from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to treat the wounded in the violence-torn country.
Russia is one of Syria's main remaining international allies but it is unclear how much influence Moscow can wield over Damascus more than a year into a bloody uprising.
Russia's foreign ministry called on both Damascus and the armed opposition to agree "without delay to daily humanitarian pauses" after ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Moscow also called for the ICRC to have access to "those detained in Syria for their participation in protests".
Mean-while, France circulated a proposed statement to the UN Security Council yesterday that would support efforts by international envoy Kofi Annan to end the violence in Syria and launch a political dialogue, following two failed attempts to pass a resolution that were vetoed by Russia and China.

**ENT** · 20-03-2012, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

^ Don't be such an idiot. It's obviously to stop her own vast network of personal accounts and accumulated wealth (all stolen from the Syrian people) to be used to funnel money to the murderous regime of her husband.

Could you not work that out on your own?

It took Ohoh six days to work that one out, after my post on 14th March

**DrAndy** · 20-03-2012, 01:35 PM

I am suprised anyone can work anything out given the copious amounts of false propaganda being issued, from both sides

unless you are really involved and know, then it is almost impossible to sort out the truth

living nearby does not help

**harrybarracuda** · 20-03-2012, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by DrAndy

I am suprised anyone can work anything out given the copious amounts of false propaganda being issued, from both sides

Most of the history of the region and the current demographics are quite public knowledge.

If you have to keep questioning any of that existing knowledge (as OhOh does above) to support your argument, it isn't much of an argument.

"unless you are really involved and know, then it is almost impossible to sort out the truth"

Depends on your definition of "really involved and know", doesn't it?

"living nearby does not help"

See above.

However, if you are saying you know no-one involved in the conflict, and that you live in Chiang Mai, then no, I would not expect you to be able to sort out the truth.

Which is why I find it strange when you come out with such comments as:

probably believable as this was all planned some time ago

Seems you sorted out your own "truth" pretty easily, despite not meeting your own criteria.

**ENT** · 20-03-2012, 05:29 PM

^
Right on the nail.

**OhOh** · 20-03-2012, 09:26 PM

post 420 today

Originally Posted by ENT

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

^ Don't be such an idiot. It's obviously to stop her own vast network of personal accounts and accumulated wealth (all stolen from the Syrian people) to be used to funnel money to the murderous regime of her husband.

Could you not work that out on your own?

It took Ohoh six days to work that one out, after my post on 14th March

Your post, in this thread, from the 14th march.

Originally Posted by ENT

Originally Posted by OhOh

"In the same context, Bolivian President Evo Morales said that his country voted a resolution on Syria last February at the UN General Assembly because it considered the Syrian crisis an internal affair, asserting that the call for military intervention in Syria hides commercial motives.

In a statement following a meeting with his Austrian counterpart, Heinz Fischer, in Vienna, Morales said that the crisis in Syria is fed for other goals, affirming that his country recognizes all the government elected democratically."

I agree with Evo Morales' above evaluation of the situation, and I think that this one point is going to be expanded upon by political leaders as negotiations continue.

China is strangely quiet about this angle, more because she stands to win a large stake in the oil industry in the ME region overall.

Care to elucidate on what there is in commmon in the two posts?

**OhOh** · 20-03-2012, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Most of the history of the region and the current demographics are quite public knowledge.

You are blindly assuming that the population groups will continue to vote on religious grounds. Still in the middle ages harry.

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