Assad gives a Gaddafiesque interview to Barbara Walters, and gets offer
to host his own talk-show on Comedy Central, sending Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
into fits of angst and consternation.
Wednesday 7, 2011
In his interview with
Barbara Walters, Assad said: “We don't kill our people...No government in the
world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person." I think we can
all safely agree with that. And the evidence of Assad craziness is to be seen
all over Syria.
For while eyes are
focused mostly on the city of Homs and surrounding areas (and rightly so as
this Sky News report demonstrates http://youtu.be/Jwcn7qPk_tE),
we cannot forget, not for a second, that open warfare is also taking place in
the Provinces of Idlib, Hama, Deraa/Hauran, Damascus, Deir Ezzor and, yes, even
Aleppo.
Indeed, on December
7, clashes between insurgents and loyalists in various locations in Idlib
today left close to 40 loyalists dead, a dozen armored vehicles destroyed, and
a truck-load of surface-to-air missiles was said to have been confiscated by
the insurgents. More than 150 soldiers are said to have defected to join the
ranks of the insurgents.
Meanwhile, loyalists
pounded several communities throughout the province including the City of Saraqib
http://youtu.be/9xAP9Xo1pCI , http://youtu.be/8vDqbHDXnLg , http://youtu.be/YOimfPmpChk , http://youtu.be/FtMtleNK1TA
The town of Da’el
in the Deraa/Hauran Province also came under fire earlier today http://youtu.be/jzYXVHhPfO8
And yet, peaceful
demonstrations are still taking place throughout the country. The people taking
part in them might be fewer, but they are more defiant than ever. The decrease
in number is attributed mostly to the onset of winter. People are fighting on
two fronts now: attempting to secure the basics, including bread and kerosene,
while keeping the momentum of their 9-months old protest movement.
A woman in Houleh
(Homs Province) cooking the family’s only daily meal. That’s what daily life is
like for many Syrian communities today http://youtu.be/gdYButl6XYw
OPPOSITION TRAVAILS CONTINUE
Leaders of the Syrian
National Council finally met with Col. Riyadh Al-Ass’aad, leader of the Free
Syrian Army, in the Turkish city of Antakya on November 28. The meeting, which
has been a main demand of protesters and independent dissidents for many weeks
now, ended with SNC leaders pledging to support the FSA so along as the latter
adhered to a strictly protective mandate and refrained from carrying out any
attacks on security headquarters and pro-Assad militias.
From an academic
standpoint, this seems like a very positive development. But the revolution is
not proceeding in the halls of academia, and in the real world where it is
unfolding, the results were mixed. The outcomes were not planned while taking
realities on the ground under consideration as SNC leaders continue to pay
greater deference to what they are being told by their international
interlocutors than to what they need to do to consolidate and expand their
appeal on the ground.
The international
community wants the SNC to prove its leadership credentials by establishing
rapport and exerting influence over the FSA and its leader, that’s
understandable, and represents a popular demand as well as far as the
protesters as concerned. I have pushed for this repeatedly as well, as
followers of this blog must know. But there is something more important that
both groups need to do before scurrying to appease the international community
and satisfy its conditions. Indeed, they both need to consolidate their
legitimacy on the ground first.
What difference can the
SNC make if it gets international recognition and loses its legitimacy among
the protesters? And what difference can the FSA make, if it fails to get all
the emerging paramilitary groups to accept the authority of its Military
Council and its leader?
By making
international recognition its number one priority, and for all the success they
had in this regard, not least the recent meeting with Mrs. Clinton, the SNC has
been continuously losing legitimacy on the ground. It has failed to expand its
membership as promised and failed to clearly embrace the demands of the
protesters who want nothing from the SNC but to be a mere amplifier of their demands.
While this stance might seem a bit unreasonable or impractical, the protesters
are simply wary of usurpers, and they don’t want to help set up another group
of leaders who refused to be accountable to the people. This was not an
opposition made revolution, and it will not become an opposition led one that
easily. The push-pull dynamics between people and Council are proving equally
frustrating.
That’s one of the
main reasons why protesters turned to the Antakya-based FSA for more than just
protection, hailing Col. Al-Ass’aad and his officers as heroes, and dedicating
a whole week to endorsing them. But that was done only inasmuch as the Colonel
and his men were willing to follow the protester lead and adopt their demands.
By agreeing to restrict the operations of the FSA to a defensive role only, and
refraining carrying out attacks on loyalist militia targets, the Colonel made a
political concession that might seem wise, but is bound to complicate his
mission immensely: the mission of providing structure to a nascent and
extremely atomized movement.
For the FSA is a not
a centralized entity, and, in reality, Col. Al-Ass’aad has nothing to do with
most operations that take place in the name of the FSA, except for those
carried out by defectors crossing borders from Turkey and Lebanon into Syria.
In most other cases, decision-making is left to local commanders, who may or
may not be affiliated with the FSA, and their units. Credits are given to the
FSA only after the operations are carried out.
As such, Col.
Al-Ass’aad promised something that he could not actually deliver. This might
undermine his position on both the international and domestic front.
Indeed, clashes between
pro-Assad militias and who can only be as insurgents at this stage continue to
take place on a daily basis, and new military units and groups, are showing up
every day, and the FSA has its work cut out for it in order to bring them it to
its folds.
This clip shows (Dec 6)
the formation of a new fighting unit in South Idlib Province, dubbed
Osama Bin Zaid and led by Lt. Zuhair Shaikh http://youtu.be/2fv537Y-ehw But it seems that members
of this unit had previously been acting under a different name when they were
part of the FSA’s Abou Al-Fida Brigade. In this older clip, we can indeed see
the same commander we saw in the earlier clip announcing the formation of a new
unit under the Aboul Fida Brigade http://youtu.be/CbVy1Fja-l0 In other words,
we have defections within the ranks of the defectors, that’s how complex things
are.
This clip
shows the formation of another armed group in Hama Province (December 6)
http://youtu.be/XU9OkBXNA_8 And another (December
6) http://youtu.be/Mk-MFNaX6t4 The speakers in both
clips don’t mention the FSA.
Here we
see an announcement regarding the formation of the Khalid Bin Al-Walid
Division, complete with affiliated units, under the leadership of Major
Ahmad Bahbouh http://youtu.be/YzJp85C98CA
The goals: protecting unarmed protesters and targeting loyalist militias
wherever they are. The demands: Arab League should refer the Syria file
to the UNSC so that international monitors are sent in suspects are referred to
the ICC. The announcement ends by calling on locals to join the movement.
Again, this is how the situation is devolving.
Thus, only two weeks
after celebrating the Free Syrian Army, the fledgling institution is at risk of
becoming completely irrelevant to developments on the ground, just like the SNC.
But losing the
ability to provide structure to the various political and military groups on
the ground is an extremely troubling development, which could pave the way
towards faster descent into anarchy and mayhem.
The lack of a
coherent vision and plan combined with the unwillingness to rise above
ideological differences, personal egos, and academic considerations is
undermining the ability of the opposition to rise up to challenge of leading
the revolution, not to mention the transition to democracy.
The SNC needs to up
its game by finally announcing its basic structure and vision during its
upcoming meeting in Tunisia scheduled for mid-December. And after that, all
opposition groups need to start working on transition planning.
For this reason, I offer the following
notes on transition by way of jumpstarting the conversation, instead of
just complaining about the lack of conversation on this issue. There is nothing
too complex here, after all, I am not exactly an expert on these issues, what I
am is a citizen and an activist who wants to see some movement on the right
tracks for once. Indeed, over the next few weeks, I will be working with a
number of international organizations and experts as well as Syrian colleagues
on coming up with a transition plan: we will exclude no one from the
conversations, irrespective of any ideological or personal differences, we just
hope that all will participate, and that by publishing some of our notes, and
interacting with a larger crown, a debate on the issues among all Syrians will
take place. This revolution has to be about visions and ideas as well, not just
debate about tactics of violence and nonviolence, who’s in and who’s out, and what
council to support or not support.
Scenes from
the battlefield
This clip shows the new tanks
now being used by pro-Assad militias (Homs, Dec 5) http://youtu.be/H1cPKkqlQ1s
December 7
HOMS CITY: Zaafaraneh
Neighborhood funeral for 8 members of the same family kidnapped, tortured
then killed by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/REAZyaAUung
The 8 Martyrs http://youtu.be/N1WwcuQC4i8
, http://youtu.be/frXqF_6BaGw , http://youtu.be/nbX1LYEKa20 , http://youtu.be/8fX54Pr3pNs , http://youtu.be/-l9OgmuhFok , http://youtu.be/ewT0UZ6QbXM , http://youtu.be/JZicZ_T0Ppc Pro-Assad
militias arresting residents http://youtu.be/LXL62ENe3D4
and snatching the corpses of insurgents from the streets http://youtu.be/wG0LmSH1-GI Random
shelling (December 6) http://youtu.be/l_jsALwrBlo
Jib Al-Jandali aftermath of random pounding http://youtu.be/V500ZkF9RjE Deir
Baalbah http://youtu.be/DuFpoX-5ZTA
Baba Amr http://youtu.be/b-FZIMc99qY
Bayadah http://youtu.be/2b2MKX43uzk
Qoussour http://youtu.be/YtGyEvBuJbU
Wa’er http://youtu.be/9uYda_ctkUI
Khalidyeh Actress Fadwa Sulaimna and Soccer Goalkeeper Sarout lead
protests http://youtu.be/zbdLuOzEaXQ
HOMS PROVINCE: Tadmor (Palmyra)
http://youtu.be/muYEl-q5VPs Sukhna
funeral http://youtu.be/ZYc8OSdle30
IDLIB: Jarjanaz http://youtu.be/oQ7c4ssuEIw M’arrat
Al-Nouman http://youtu.be/3F0SQDgVxZY
Binnish http://youtu.be/u2-I1mUWbxI
Jabal Al-Zawiyeh http://youtu.be/B_P0ek4G5bI
Sfohin http://youtu.be/N7LNoTc4FJw
DAMASCUS CITY: Zamalka http://youtu.be/PLa2Yl8tSZU
DAMASCUS PROVINCE: Qalamoun
student demonstration http://youtu.be/5ankHq_wC1o
Zabadani http://youtu.be/AuPZl3p5vok
Dmeir http://youtu.be/Us6ZWYLLXNE
DERAA/HAURAN: Hraak http://youtu.be/NJsvGbazXtQ Ankhel
http://youtu.be/FtOv3Q8NDpM Maarabah
http://youtu.be/AtAqfZexcZk Mseifrah
http://youtu.be/obIUDGt84Ds Bosr
Al-Harir http://youtu.be/ZicyTYm98IY
Sanamein http://youtu.be/e3ZpSMxRRu4
ALEPPO: Kafar Nouran http://youtu.be/6mWmPumvMfo Anadan
http://youtu.be/CDqD86zSzW0 Tal
Rif’aat http://youtu.be/ESFXcW_NArg
Marei http://youtu.be/dn2iH16oNEo
Qibtan Al-Jabal http://youtu.be/sEysHAELRqw
HAMA: Madeeq http://youtu.be/LyEzvLP-rac Tanks on the
move in Hama City http://youtu.be/aUB3K0eT50U
followed by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/naselTYMf3k
Karnaz http://youtu.be/9LLPkk5fqcM
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