The only way out in Syria takes us further in. The sooner
America’s leaders understand that the better for all. For now, even without U.S.
intervention, Syria has already become a Vietnam-by-proxy, and America is
losing again. All America’s major regional allies are currently involved, not
to mention of course, America’s enemies. How could anyone think that America
could manage to stay out of this is beyond me. But what’s even more surprising
is that some still advocate “non-intervention” or accepting compromise outcomes
that could make Russia and Iran happy at the expense of things like freedom,
dignity, decency and humanity. Yeah, that should make a world a better place, a
place where mullahs, oligarchs and sociopaths can have their way.
Wednesday
October 17, 2012
Today’s
Death toll: 155. The Breakdown: toll includes 13 children and 8 women. 48 in
Damascus and suburbs (including 10 executed in East Ghouta), 46 in Aleppo (most
in Shaar Massacre), 27 in Idlib (most in Kafrenbel Massacre), 12 in Homs, 7 in
Raqqah, 6 in Deir Ezzorn 4 in Hama, 3 in Daraa, and 2 in Latakia (LCC).
News
Special
Reports
Residents of Arsal, a Sunni Muslim
town of 40,000, say they have strong motives to help those trying to topple
Syria's regime: they themselves were harassed and abused by it during three
decades of de facto Syrian control of Lebanon. But in siding with the rebels,
many of them fellow Sunnis, Arsal is also deepening rifts with its Shiite
Muslim neighbors in the Bekaa Valley that runs along Lebanon's eastern border
with Syria.
The Bekaa Valley is a lawless
territory even at the best of times… Smugglers have long operated in the
hinterlands, and some farmers grow hashish, as their fathers have for
centuries. Now… Lebanese villagers have had to abandon homes as shells hit
their fields. Rebel fighters take shelter and rest in hamlets beyond the Syrian
lines. The villagers say Assad's troops move through the fields at night. It is
a corner which could provide the spark for a wider conflagration in a war in
that has already claimed 30,000 lives and pushed up to the borders of Turkey, Jordan
and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as well as Lebanon.
Keen to secure loyalty, Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad has granted Syria's Kurds de facto control over
predominantly Kurdish areas of the country. But with the freedom, divisions
have emerged.
Syria's wealthy, long cultivated by
President Bashar Assad as a support for his regime, are seeing their businesses
pummeled by the bloody civil war… Several businessmen interviewed by The
Associated Press say resentment is growing against Assad over the crisis — but
they also aren't throwing their lot in with the rebellion. They are hunkering
down, trying to salvage their companies.
The Assad regime wants their support
and warns of a genocide, even as it shells their neighborhoods. Whom can the
country’s Christians trust? Clare Morgana Gillis reports from Aleppo.
When popular committee patrols go out
with their weapons at night in rural Damascus and Jaramana (a district of
200,000 people), Syrian army units in the area can breath a sigh of relief.
These civilians who have taken up arms — or received light arms and ammunition
from army units — prevent the FSA from entering many of the lively and densely
populated cities in rural Damascus (whose population totals 1 million).
For the last 19 months Syria has
fallen deeper and deeper into civil war. What started in March 2011 as another
offshoot of the Arab Spring, the demand for freedom and reform, was met so
brutally that ordinary Syrians decided that Assad had to go. Left to fester,
with the United Nations deadlocked over how to end the fighting, the death toll
has reached 29,000 according to the Syrian opposition, and the most horrific
massacres of women, children and old men have taken place. Extremists and
foreign jihadists are joining the battle. With 1.2 million people displaced,
the approaching winter poses as much of a threat as the relentless violence.
Ammar Abdulhamid & Khawla
Yusuf: The
Shredded Tapestry: The State of Syria Today
Myth of the Third Way
Robert A. Pastor, professor of international relations at American
University in Washington and a senior adviser to the Carter Centre on conflict
resolution in the Middle East, proposes
the exploration of “a third option in Syria,” one that seeks “not to overthrow
Al Assad but build a political system that will provide voice and vote to all
Syrians and protect all minorities and sects.” There are two main problems with
this logic: it rewards Assad’s bloody tactics and sets a precedent for others
in the region and elsewhere to emulate, and, as professor Pastor himself
concedes, it closes the doors for now on democratic change:
Is democracy
possible in Syria? It seems improbable. But the most likely alternative — a
decade-long descent into self-destruction — is too awful to contemplate.
But that’s exactly the conclusion that Assad wanted us to reach from
the very beginning. If we embrace this “third way,” as Pastor put it, we will
be, in fact, rewarding the very sociopathic behavior that is at the roots of
our current dilemma, and we will also be giving the Obama Administration and
other western leaders a pass on doing nothing in the face of mounting evidence
that Assad was willing and actively involved in perpetrating genocide as they
watched and feigned shock and horror. It is this kind of approach that is too
awful to contemplate as far as I am concerned.
As for that “decade-long descent into self-destruction,” only those
bent on adopting an approach that either rewards evil or does nothing are
willing to provide this kind of prognosis so it can used to justify turning
their back on democracy. There was nothing inevitable about the situation we
face in Syria today. The tragedy was all too predictable and all too
preventable. While we may not be able to turn back the clock to correct our
mistakes, we can avoid compounding them: instead of turning our backs on
democratic change, we can still pursue it as our immediate goal. Assad has to
go and has to be held accountable for his crimes, and a political process that
could pave the way to democratic transformation within a reasonable timeframe
has to be worked out in cooperation with in-country activists and rebel
leaders.
Video Highlights
Islamist rebels in the town of Elbab in Aleppo Province
interrogate the pilot of a downed MIG. He is Christian from the coastal town of
Mashtal Hilou, and his name is Roni Ibrahim. Rebel leader says that bruises on
Roni’s face happened when he resisted arrest, but pledges that Roni will not be
tortured. http://youtu.be/IVIJDQm_lf0. Roni says
that he was just following orders, as he is berated by different rebels http://youtu.be/NK4xFZGxbBM
In Al-Akrad and Turkmen Mountains in Northern Lattakia Province,
rebels continue their successful operations against pro-Assad militias and
troops, killing several high ranking colonels and officers http://youtu.be/BhOkCjWJduE Battles in
the region are pretty sectarian in character at this stage. Many rebels are
clearly Salafists. Still, the pejorative term, Nusairi, that some Salafists use
when referring to Alawites is not heard in the video itself but is used in the
video description on the YouTube channel. Sectarian sentiments on all sides are
real, but by controlling media outlets and imposing their particular terms and
vocabs, Islamists are trying to assume a greater ownership of the Revolution than
their actual size and contribution would allow, for now. In the video, the
pejorative terms of Fatissah, an Arabic word for the corpse of animals, is used
to refer to dead pro-Assad officers, who include Col. Ali Al-Ali, whose body
can be seen trampled underfoot by rebels at the end of the video. The term
“pigs” is also used. The same video appears on a different YouTube Channel
without the pejorative term “Nusairi,” but the channel is titled
“Unfortunately, I used to be Shiite.” http://youtu.be/oEwwcCDj0x4
In a nearby location, a new fighting brigade is formed: from the names
of the various affiliated units, an Islamic leaning group http://youtu.be/SrE1-Yise34 Rebels from
the unit showcase some of the arms they have recently gained from their
campaign against loyalists http://youtu.be/OjLu56lCK5s
, http://youtu.be/ocgVNAeqUNA Ne
defectors join in http://youtu.be/qBPRZYY45-M
Elsewhere in the region, local rebels use a mortar cannon to fire rounds at a
loyalist position http://youtu.be/s5XeVzrvt9Q
Rebels shoot a helicopter gunship in Idlib http://youtu.be/a4Jy3Z_kzAY
A missile lands next to the headquarters of one of the leaders of Al-Tawhid
Brigade in Aleppo City during an interview with Sky News http://youtu.be/jFz1Sk43nfA
Elsewhere in Aleppo City, Islamist rebels fire their improvised
missile at a loyalist checkpoint http://youtu.be/DQWdQ_mX3ug
, http://youtu.be/8RnU_NTjnxE Rebels
from the same group operating in the town of Tal Abyad, Raqqah Province,
claim to have launched 60 such missiles at loyalist positions http://youtu.be/1wv4MNvnzm8
Meanwhile, the Dresdenification of Aleppo and so many other Syrian
towns and cities continues: Al-Sha’ar Neighborhood, Aleppo City http://youtu.be/FAGHlDrwZ40 , http://youtu.be/7kbu1o0NI_s Martyrs http://youtu.be/ECz9nH9quRk
MIGs keep pounding Eastern Ghoutah Region in Damascus http://youtu.be/R3098R53Fmc
A MIG drops its load over the town of Ma’arrat Hourmah in Idlib
Province http://youtu.be/DGiDGlDJFSs ,
http://youtu.be/C9Q-lmsYu6Y
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