“Heartbreaking”!

The hearts of world leaders are with us without a doubt, but we prefer their guns, for in the fight against the likes of Assad, only guns can make a difference. We learned this lesson the hard way.

Wednesday March 7, 2012

Tuesday: death toll stood at 42. The pounding of Old Homs continued. In Madaya, inhabitants held a funeral for 8 locals who were kidnapped and killed by militias loyal to Assad.

Also on Tuesday, President Obama described the situation in Syria as “heartbreaking,” but refused to un-break our hearts with pledge of military intervention.

Wednesday: 80. The dead included members of 4 families slaughtered by knives.

Deputy Minister of Petroleum, Abdo Husaameddine, becomes the highest ranking civilian to defect from the Assad regime, declares support to the SNC and FSA and admonishes Alawites to stand up against the regime.

News

Obama administration moves to aid Syrian opposition

Syria crisis: Obama rejects US military intervention

Syria refuses to allow aid into Homs

Syrian government forces 'shell rebel-held towns'

UN Aid Chief: Syria's Baba Amr 'Completely Devastated'

Syria Opposition Struggles to Overcome Rifts

UNESCO to rebuke Syria but keep it in rights committee

Panetta defends cautious approach toward Syria

Assad’s forces gaining ‘momentum’ in Syria, U.S. general warns

Op-Eds & Special Reports

Amanpour: McCain’s Call to Arms in Syria Has Echoes of Bosnia Genocide

A Syrian-American considers the Syrian insurgency and the American imperative

Emir Suljagic & Reuf Bajrovic: The day after Homs

“There is probably a boy somewhere in Syria now, a teenager like both of us were 20 years ago, huddling in a dark basement, hungry and paralyzed with fear, waiting for the fatal knock at the door before he is taken out to a football stadium or school building with hundreds of others, to be “selected” -- made to watch others being killed and in the end being killed himself. All his hopes and aspirations buried under the rubble, bulldozed together with the dreams of an entire generation of Syrians, in the same manner our friends and family had been two decades ago on the orders of Radovan Karadžić and Slobodan Milošević.”

I don’t want the U.S. to become the policeman of the world, but I also cannot live in a world without a policeman. The situation in Syria requires policing. Should the U.S. move now, there is enough goodwill to be cultivated. Let’s not wait until this becomes a thankless mission, but one which the U.S. has to do anyway.  

Videos

Impact of pounding in Old Homs http://youtu.be/xtcB1CO8j0g , http://youtu.be/Fky-2uq7SnQ Gunfire in Wadi Arab http://youtu.be/a7y0zoqknrg and Bab Tadmor http://youtu.be/9OHodaulONU Jub Al-Jandali: impact of pounding http://youtu.be/XuHt2glfNkQ , http://youtu.be/2TVDCfIQBqU Khaldiyeh: a funeral http://youtu.be/V-Kw3QaBVVA Sounds of nighttime pounding http://youtu.be/QZjia08GMFM

More Alawite defectors in Idlib Province http://youtu.be/UrZp9xScnQg

Damascus/Eastern Ghoutah: sounds of nighttime clashes between loyalists and the local resistance http://youtu.be/6BAaQovqqpg Military plane flies over the region during the day to survey the territory  http://youtu.be/mpffSCw68QE

Deir Ezzor City: the remains of a 12 year old boy http://youtu.be/ot7Zaw-Feo0