Anything Goes!

You can dream up all sorts of legal niceties, such as the Responsibility to Protect and establish all sorts of promising bureaucracies, such as a genocide prevention office, but that means absolutely nothing if you are not willing to act. The true measure of goodness is the commitment to action not words and hollow institutions.  

Saturday July 14, 2012

Today’s Death toll: 88. The Breakdown: 20 in Homs, 24 in Damascus (22 in the Suburbs, and 2 in the City), 13 in Hama (including 5 who died in the car bombing in Mhardeh and 3 who died in the car bombing in Al-Karameh neighborhood in Hama City), 13 in Idlib, 12 in Deir Ezzor and 1 in Daraa.

Activists from Aleppo report that heavy gunfire was heard coming out of the Central Prison as rumors of an overnight riot broke.

News

Syria: Tremseh killings targeted rebels, UN says The government attack on the Syrian village of Tremseh mainly targeted the homes of rebels and activists, the UN mission in the country has said.

Red Cross ruling raises questions of Syrian war crimes

(Reuters) - The Red Cross now views fighting in Syria as an internal armed conflict - a civil war in layman's terms - crossing a threshold experts say can help lay the ground for future prosecutions for war crimes.

Syria massacre: Assad's forces 'shot anything moving' The small town of Tremseh has suffered what may be the single worst atrocity of the Syrian uprising, say eyewitnesses

Turkey PM calls Syria massacres attempted 'genocide' Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns Assad regime that the Syrian people will 'make them pay' for violence.

Op-Eds & Special Reports

Friends no more: Implications of the Tlass and Fares defections from the Syrian regime

The Syrian Arms Race: Photographs by Yuri Kozyrev

Syria's Kurds play the long game

Can It Get Worse in Syria? It Just Did The Tremseh massacre and the movement of chemical weapons show that the Syrian regime is on an increasingly deadly path and will not be diverted by negotiations. The situation is becoming rapidly worse, and diplomatic efforts to end the fighting will continue to fail. UN envoy Kofi Annan's efforts are increasingly out of touch with realities on the ground, giving the regime a fig leaf of legitimacy and time in which to break the opposition. In short, this is a dangerous regime -- dangerous to its people and, as the CW movement suggests, dangerous to the region. The time for talking with Bashar al-Assad has passed. It is time for ultimatums -- and, if those fail, armed action to topple the regime.

Video Highlights

Palestinians from the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus City hold a major funeral for yesterday’s martyrs during which they remove all posters of hafiz Al-Assad and chant in support of protest hubs and occasionally shouting “we want our revenge from Bashar and Jibril” – Ahmad Jibril is the pro-Assad leader of a break-away faction of the PLA based in Damascus http://youtu.be/5DTr8Vx7oOE Destroying a large poster of Assad Sr. http://youtu.be/dk4XXEhy-aw Another HD view of the rally http://youtu.be/FE389PVQx1o

The growing tensions in Damascus City are underscored by the presence of patrols by pro-Assad militias using tanks and army vehicles in the streets of the city including near Abbasid Square http://youtu.be/RVKKFbhXLkg

Indeed to the East, the pounding of the suburbs of Arbeen and Douma, among other restive communities in Eastern Ghoutah continues: Arbeen: http://youtu.be/9e5BprrOokY Douma http://youtu.be/0vrLUBmBDV0 In Harasta, pro-Assad militias stormed the suburb and looted shops http://youtu.be/F5qrmNxFpW8 The injured and dead of Douma http://youtu.be/f5myldp2aYg , http://youtu.be/oUrZ-04QGmI

More high level defections take place in Rastan, Homs Province http://youtu.be/1FfNvkJHc7U Other high level defections took place in nearby Talbisseh http://youtu.be/5bAZF7538U4 High level Defections take place in Khan Shaikhoon in Idlib Province as well http://youtu.be/I77vNAdjfBA

But the pounding of Rastan continues http://youtu.be/chTFvGa9hZg , http://youtu.be/Ykh3Rh-4ajY

And the pounding of Old Homs continues: Qarabis http://youtu.be/ftthk4rkbjo , http://youtu.be/YHF65mJhMoQ , http://youtu.be/SM9ZmYn7OXA Khaldiyeh http://youtu.be/1C9OJ39DVJA 800 families are still trapped in Old Homs under complete siege, living hand to mouth.

Units affiliated with the Free Syria Army continue to take prisoners from pro-Assad troops, including high level ones (a Druze and an Alawite) http://youtu.be/5bg4mKGYyu4 and low-ranking troops who serve as cannon fodder, mostly Sunnis http://youtu.be/TkCeCpgfmrs

The situation in Deir Ezzor City

Leaked Video One of the heavy artillery positions taking part in the pounding of Deir Ezzor City http://youtu.be/PIHyDbZKw-8

A child pulled from underneath the rubble in Deir Ezzor City http://youtu.be/7VtzHUvJT0Q His brother was not so lucky http://youtu.be/iey7tJRgmSA Indeed, five children from Al-Kharouf family were killed today.

Looking for bodies in the rubble of bombed out buildings in Jbeileh Neighborhood – a hazardous task considering that the pounding continues http://youtu.be/_4itYIlHZuw , http://youtu.be/3FEDJwuy8As