President Obama is right:
the United States has given more than any other country to help mitigate the humanitarian
crisis unfolding in Syria. For that he deserves our gratitude. But what he
remains unwilling to consider, it seems, is that the United States has several options,
not to mention a moral obligation, to actually stop this disaster in track
before it mushrooms into a regional meltdown. This will be the biggest humanitarian
aid package of all. His reiterated commitment to Assad’s removal and to
supporting the transition to democratic rule is laudable, but his failure to
explain how this could be accomplished and what the U.S. intends to do to achieve
this 18-month old objective continues to puzzle.
Tuesday January
29, 2013
Today’s
Death Toll: 228 martyrs
(including 13 children and 7 women): 118 in Aleppo (80 of them in Bustan
Al-Qasr), 37 in Damascus and Sububs, 25 in Daraa, 23 in Homs, 11 in Hama, 7 in
Idlib and 7 in Deir Ezzor (LCCs).
Points
of Random Shelling: 424 points: 14 points were
shelled by warplanes, 4 points by Thermobaric Bombs, 3 points by Cluster Bombs
and 1 point by Phosphorus Bombs. The mortar shelling was reported in 187
points, the artillery shelling in 145 points and the missile shelling in 70
points (LCCs).
Clashes: FSA rebels clashed with regime forces and its Shabiha in 142
locations. Successful operations included downing a warplane and destroying a loyalist
military convoy in Sfeira in Aleppo, liberating Political Security Department
in Deir Ezzor City and freeing all detainees and taking control of the Idlib
Central Prison (LCCs).
News
Dozens
of People Are Reported Bound and Shot in Syria Muddied and waterlogged
bodies of scores of people, most of them men in their 20s and 30s, have been
found in a suburb of Syria’s contested northern city of Aleppo, activists and
insurgent fighters reported Tuesday. Videos posted by opponents of President Bashar
al-Assad seemed to show that many had been shot in the back of the head while
their hands were bound.
Obama
Delivers Video Message to Syria as Death Toll Rises “He’s clearly
trying to show and tell the people of the Arab world the U.S. is very involved
in delivering assistance to Syria,” Danin said. “It may not be lethal, it may
not be military, but he went out of his way to point out the U.S. is the single
largest contributor of assistance. ‘‘He’s also trying to beat back criticism,’’
Danin said. ‘‘He’s trying to get in front of the story rather than have the
story be ‘The United States is standing by while Syrians suffer.’’’
Hillary Clinton: US
set up credible opposition in Syria The outgoing Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said the US has played an indispensable role in working to
establish a credible opposition coalition in Syria.
Syria
"breaking up before everyone's eyes:" envoy tells U.N. U.N.-Arab
League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi warned the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday
that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be able to cling to power for now but
the country is "breaking up before everyone's eyes," diplomats told
Reuters. Brahimi appealed to the 15-nation council to overcome its deadlock and
take action to help put an end to the Syrian civil war. However, it was not
clear whether his latest report - one of his bleakest since his appointment
last year - would persuade Russia to agree to support concrete U.N. steps to
try to halt the bloodshed.
Palestinian
commander who once tried to challenge Arafat dies in Damascus, aged 86 Maragha
rebelled against Arafat in 1982, after Israel invaded southern Lebanon and
bombed the capital, Beirut, pushing out Palestinian fighters. Arafat and much
of the Palestinian leadership fled to establish a base in Tunisia. Other
fighters fled to Algeria and Yemen. Maragha wanted Arafat to hold military
commanders accountable for fleeing from the fighting. He argued against leaving
Beirut, wanting to stay as close as possible to Israel's borders. A year later,
he established a rival group, called "Fatah Uprising." The group
received the backing of the Assad regime in Syria, which sought to weaken
Arafat. He ultimately left to Damascus, where he joined the Syria-allied
Palestinian National Alliance, a group that rejected negotiations with Israel.
Former
US Official: Syria Faces Unclear Future Brent Scowcroft views the
two-year Syrian uprising as much more complex than the Arab Spring uprising in
Libya. "In Libya, you could see the alternatives if you throw out
[Moammar] Ghadafi," Scowcroft said in an interview with VOA. "[In]
Syria, the alternatives are not so clear."
UN
Seeks Major Aid Boost For Syrian `Catastrophe' The urgency for a
dramatic increase in international relief funds for Syria - seeking total
pledges of $1.5 billion - will be the central message Wednesday in Kuwait from
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other leaders such as Jordan's King
Abdullah II, whose nation is struggling with more than 320,000 refugees and
more arriving every day. The meeting also seeks to reorient some of the
political calculations among Western nations and allies supporting the Syrian
rebels. With the civil war nearing its two-year mark and no end in sight, U.N.
officials and others are pressing governments to recognize the potential
long-term humanitarian burdens and spread resources and support to both the
Syrian opposition and the millions of people caught in the conflict.
Special
Reports
Syrians are fleeing in record numbers
to neighboring countries, and the injured can’t rely on Syrian hospitals
because they have often been targeted by the regime’s fighter jets. Targeting
civilians, or hospitals, is a war crime under international law. “In Syria,
hospitals are sometimes targeted with rockets and shelling and any doctor that
they catch treating casualties they immediately execute him and they tell
Syrians those are terrorists and you are helping terrorists,” says Yasir
Alsyed, the manager of the rehab center.
Although sanctions have forced Iran to
cut back dramatically on its shipping traffic, some Iranian-linked vessels
continue to slip through the net. For a brazen example, take the case of an
Iranian-flagged oil tanker named the Tour 2, currently off Cyprus, which
earlier this month paid a call at the Syrian port of Tartous. The Tour 2 is not
on the U.S. sanctions list, though if sanctions are to be the U.S. tool of
choice for dealing with Syria and Iran, the Tour 2 comes with a record that
should transfix any dedicated sanctions enforcer. Over the past year, it has
made at least three circuits between U.S.-sanctioned Iran and U.S.-sanctioned
Syria, calling at Syria last March, July and just this month. These trips
appear to be part of Iran’s effort to bolster Syria’s regime against the
uprising in which more than 60,000 people so far have died. While Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has abetted the Assad regime in the killing,
Iranian-controlled tankers have helped the Syrian regime defy U.S. and European
Union embargoes on its oil sales by sending ships to pick up Syrian crude, for
onward sale that benefits Iran’s embattled ally, President Bashar Assad. The
Tour 2 has been one of these ships.
Aleppo's present belies a much richer
past. It's Syria's largest city, and one of the world's oldest continually
inhabited urban areas. Over the centuries, it has served as a major crossroads
for trade and commerce. At The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., there is
moving evidence of an earlier, more peaceful time in that now-beleaguered
Syrian hub: photographs of 19th century women in gold-trimmed velvet jackets,
flowing pants and, on their heads, finely woven skull caps. One such small and
brimless cap, made in 1800, is on display at the museum.
America’s fears of heavily armed
jihadists overrunning the country is already coming to pass, Azm says—a result,
in his opinion, of the lack of international support for more moderate and
organized rebel factions. “No one supported them,” he says. “Then you had these
Islamist groups come in, and they had weapons, and they had guns, and they had
money—and people started to drift toward them. And they’re on the loose now
anyway.”
As the Syrian Tragedy continues to unfold, it is proven much more of a
serious challenge to lawmakers all over the world than many of us had expected.
It is denuding us all, and revealing weaknesses not just in the structure of
decision-making in the UN, but also in several important countries around the
world, including the United States, as we can deduce from this
article by Bennett Ramberg:
Congress should
reconvene the hearings begun last session. This time, however, it must press
for details about the administration’s assumptions about intervening or not. In
addition, all the hearings should be public – not secret, as the administration
prefers. This will give the American people confidence in the decision-making.
Among the broad questions the hearings should explore:
•
Why should Syria’s use of
chemical weapons be more concerning than the conventional arms that have killed
many tens of thousands and wounded countless others?
•
Have policymakers
exaggerated chemical weapons’ effectiveness to kill, injure and terrorize?
•
Given concerns that
terrorists could get hold of these weapons, what challenges would they confront
to transport and detonate the toxic material in and out of Syria?
•
Why can’t Syria’s
neighbors, Turkey, Jordan and Israel – all substantial military powers in the
region – deal with this challenge?
•
How many and what kinds of
U.S. forces would operations require –with and without allies – to lock down
the Syrian chemical arsenal? Would air power be enough? Would boots on the
ground be required to secure secret sites? Could rebel militias serve this
purpose?
•
If the United States
intervenes, what is the game plan and exit strategy to prevent another
quagmire?
Congress should
mold its findings into a joint House and Senate resolution – still plausible on
national security issues even as legislators divide on budgetary matters –
unblemished by executive branch drum-beating or quaking.
If Congress does
this, it won’t just be addressing the Syrian challenge. It will finally begin
to right the imbalance of power between the executive and lawmakers that for
too long has dominated American war deciding.
This will begin to
fulfill what the War Powers Resolution intended – to “insure that the
collective judgment of both the Congress and the president will apply to the
introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”
What makes these points particularly important is that they are made by
someone who used to be the Obama Administration’s point man on Syria just until
the end of last year:
Indeed, the United
States’ recognition of the Syrian Opposition Coalition in December 2012 as “the
legitimate representative of the Syrian people” would be meaningless without
the implicit understanding that those who legitimately represent 22.5 million
Syrians have the right to constitute a government. And yet, were such a
government to establish itself on liberated Syrian territory, would the United
States recognize it as the Syrian government? Would it help to defend that
government against the Assad regime’s likely efforts to strangle it in the
cradle? Would it enter into a security assistance relationship with the new
Syrian government? Would it organize an international effort to fund the new
government at levels that would enable it to meet the humanitarian, essential
services, and law-and-order needs of its constituents? These questions must be
answered—and answered definitively—before the Syrian Opposition Coalition can
reasonably undertake the establishment of such a government…
The possibility of
the Syrian opposition forming an alternative government offers the Obama
administration a choice it does not welcome: either reconsider its basic
strategy or tell the opposition (and our allies and friends) not to count on
the United States to do the things that would give a new government the chance
to succeed. The former could be
wrenching, as key administration officials see Syria as a beckoning morass: the
mother of all distractions for a second Obama term dedicated to accomplishing
an ambitious agenda at home and creating a sustainable and stable security
architecture in Asia. Yet the latter could be disastrous; given enough rope
Assad will take Syria straight to the gallows, and the consequences of that
hanging will be felt by 22.5 million Syrians and all of their neighbors for
decades to come. Will the United States
be able to avert its glance as the tsunami of Syrian state failure washes
refugees, terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction over the region?
The Syrian
revolution is not America’s to win or lose. The American Revolution was not
France’s to win or lose. Yet without the support of France, American
independence could have been deferred indefinitely and disastrously. Without
American support, the uprising of Syrians against a regime willing to assault
their dignity and take their lives in addition to picking their pockets, might
have died an early death. Yet now a point of decision has arrived. For the
Syrian opposition to form a government offering all Syrians a credible and
convincing alternative to the Assad-Makhluf family clique, the United States
will have to step up its game. Reluctance to do so is understandable. Failure
to do so could be disastrous.
Video Highlights
Video of President
Obama’s message to the Syrian people http://youtu.be/15Ldu9dZKHY
Videos from the massacre
at Boustan Al-Qasr, Aleppo City: activists found dozens of bodies of
people who seem to have been summarily executed by pro-Assad militias – The moment
of discovery http://youtu.be/mlOSRzKNhZI
Pulling the bodies from the river banks http://youtu.be/2inMpA_h6lY
, http://youtu.be/O-YtyxA3zxo Collecting
the bodies http://youtu.be/KuOTQxd84VQ
, http://youtu.be/O4y8gQV4DO8 Angry
Locals http://youtu.be/YqyccUDdlCo , http://youtu.be/1mCSVNbijRs Impromptu funeral
for one of the over 80 victims http://youtu.be/NDTgCMEV-Mg
Bodies lined up in rows http://youtu.be/AfqHEQQuuGs
The Massacre in pictures.
Rebels in Sfeirah,
Aleppo, repel an attack on their town by loyalist militias http://youtu.be/YNoRW9RLVHQ destroying a
number of vehicles http://youtu.be/AfqHEQQuuGs
Hundreds of defected
soldiers arrive in Idlib http://youtu.be/pHn0aqLHWIU
Video produced by the
Islamist Ahrar Al-Sham Brigades showing their participation in the
liberation of the Central Prison of Idlib http://youtu.be/iI_j-u_PTrc
A tour of the compound http://youtu.be/_-Gtr9EY9N8
In Deir Ezzor City,
rebels take over the local branch of the political security and free the
prisoners http://youtu.be/ZJvRIH4FuKc
, http://youtu.be/u--S4nilBAs , http://youtu.be/v3ELTMnBj7E , http://youtu.be/APYr5JZiBtY , http://youtu.be/fYWayv25WLk The dead in
here are pro-Assad militias who were killed during the operations http://youtu.be/HWPwHtPn950 And the
clashes continue: Destroying a tank http://youtu.be/IPpDIF2j-zE
, http://youtu.be/UGMnfRBfkiA Rebels
take control of a tank http://youtu.be/zBVoVrhWR9I
Rebels have managed to
confiscate some formidable rockets from certain regime storage facilities,
especially in Aleppo, but they don’t have any launchers http://youtu.be/7wtVi0KN4yw
A Russian
journalist is hit by a sniper and rescued and treated by locals http://youtu.be/VDN0qkJGVPg
Rebels in Karnaz,
Hama, use improvised rockets to attack loyalist positions http://youtu.be/vRYV5Girsk0 As the clashes
continue http://youtu.be/G_fbsagHnDk
and the aerial bombardment http://youtu.be/B12BxJOtptE
Regime forces respond with tanks http://youtu.be/-HQ6QIr6t00
, http://youtu.be/pHnQsBn4Pgc
In Damascus, the
pounding of the town of Daraya continues http://youtu.be/2TW8BVtaIQU , http://youtu.be/zWws2H9tplA , http://youtu.be/XvCZa8eUa_U
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