War in Syria

EU Eases Syria Oil Sanctions to Assist Rebels

http://rt.com/news/eu-syria-embargo-oil-206/

"EU governments have agreed to ease sanctions on Syrian allowing European importers to buy oil from the Syrian opposition. The move is aimed at EU countries providing a financial lifeline to rebels fighting Syrian government forces.

The move is also an attempt to bolster the SNC's credibility among Syrians oppposing the country's President Bashar Assad. 'So what they are doing is legalizing theft by an armed gang. The European Union is waving the flag of Al Qaeda'.."

Syria in Boston  -  by Thierry Meyssan

http://www.voltairenet.org/article178273.html

What has Syria got to do with the Boston bombing? Nothing at first glance, yet this event - and the clamor it has sparked - provides the key explanation for the Kerry-Lavrov plan deadlock. It nothing is happening in Syria, it is because Washington and Moscow have run into unforeseen difficulties, including the Chechen imbroglio..."

Pro-Israeli US Lawmakers Urge Bombing Syrian Air Bases, Arming Militants, Invasion

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/04/29/300874/us-senators-urge-bombing...

"Top US Republican lawmakers have again called for further American actions against Syria, including the bombing of its air bases, leading a multi-nation invasion of the country and sending lethal weapons to anti-Damascus militant gangs..."

'West is Using Possibility of Chemical Weapons to Encourage Intervention in Syria'

http://rt.com/op-edge/chemical-weapons-encourage-intervention-476/

"I think there is a move where they're trying to amass more and more reasons for going to war. We already have US and British troops training in Jordan near the Syrian border. We already have money coming in from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to fund the opposition. We already have the Turkish government who has provided facilities for the Free Syrian Army. And I think this is a further ratchet up towards the possibility of war..."

UN Renews Call for Full Access to Syria for Chemical Weapons Inquiry

http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-un-593/

"The UN chief has urged Damascus to give its fact-finding team full access to sites where chemical weapons were allegedly ised, stressing that he takes seriously the recent US report about the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that using weapons of mass destruction as a tool in geopolitical games prevents an honest investigation of their alleged use in Syria..."

Israeli Intelligence Directorate Sends America to War

http://www.roitov.com/articles/aman.htm

"Two-entwined red-lines. IDF Intelligence Directorate expects the USA to attack Syria.."

@Bec: American brains are much the same..

At Least 13 Killed, More Than 70 Injured as Massive Car Blast Rocks Central Damascus

http://rt.com/news/syria-damascus-blast-injured-609/

"Al Ikhbariya TV described the blast as a terrorist explosion..."

NDPP wrote:

@Bec: American brains are much the same..

 

How do you know?

Apparently when an Islamist organization intervenes on Assad's side its no big deal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/30/hezbollah-syria-uprising-nasrallah

North Star wrote:

Apparently when an Islamist organization intervenes on Assad's side its no big deal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/30/hezbollah-syria-uprising-nasrallah

US Seeks to Foment Violence Across Middle East: Sabah Jawad

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/05/01/301333/us-seeks-to-foment-unres...

"Press TV has conducted an interview with Sabah Jawad, director of the Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation about the situation in Iraq. 'It is not only in Syria, it is spreading to Iraq. It is spreading to Lebanon. So there is an implementation of a new Sykes-Picot plan for the Middle East, to fragment the area and to make the people busy killing each other while the US gets away with murder and looting the economies..."

sure hope so Rikardo...because it's Syria they seek to destroy, not just Assad.

Syrian Guerrillas are 'Simple Country Folk with No Clear Ideology' - Captive Journalist to RT

http://rt.com/news/syrian-rebels-kocheva-interview-665/

"The Syrian opposition is made up of young men with little education, brainwashed into fighting President Assad, journalist Anhar Kocheva told RT. Kocheva spoke of her time as a hostage, describing a ragtag group of men devoid of tangible ideals.."

The US is Supporting the Most Violent Muslim Terrorists in Order to Wage War for Oil

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/the-u-s-is-supporting-the-most-vi...

"When we finish with Assad, we will fight the US!' - AQ Syrian Rebel

My last post was so naive.  Syria may indeed just be another Rwanda for the R2P humanitarian interventionists.  If only we had intervened.  Russia’s veto prevented us from saving the Syrians.  

Libya was not their last triumph.  They, Axworthy, Segal, Broadbent and company, and all those NGO's on the R2P website, won’t give up.  Just like a XIXth century Canadian missionary in China I read about.

Rikardo: Could it be that Syria is a FAILURE for the Humanitarian Interventionists, the R2P proponents?  Was Libya their last TRIUMPH ?

Absolutely its a failure. 

The casualty numbers in Libya (with R2P intervention) are generally agreed to have been between 15,000 - 20,000 deaths.

The numbers in Syria (without R2P intervention) are c. 70,000 dead ,- increasing daily with no end in sight.   

So absolutely, there has been a failure of the international community. That's obvious and disturbing. And nobody has paid a higher price for this failure than Syrian civilians.

Equally disturbing is the bizarre, gleeful delight of some Babblers of a "free-market" approach to international and civil conflict and the ever-climbing casualty count. 

Sherpa-Finn for someone who supposedly promotes R2P as an option you don't seem to understand it very well. As you know I don't agree with the idea but if you are going to promote regime change then don't hide behind a doctrine that does not even fit the Syrian situation. The Syrian government has not committed genocide against its people.  If did kill protestors, which they dispute, the numbers were never very high and the incidents were sporadic run of the mill totalitarianism not an orchestrated murder campaign like in Rwanda. The government has been offering to negotiate a peaceful route to elections for over a year and they have been told by the Western backed terrorists that regime change is a precondition.

You are arguing for imperial intervention to install a government favourable to the US and its NATO allies not for the protection of Syrians. The flawed concept of R2P doesn't have any relevance because the minimum conditions for invoking it have not come close to being met.

[quote]

According to the International Commission for Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) Report in 2001 (which was not adopted by national governments), any form of a military intervention initiated under the premise of responsibility to protect must fulfill the following six criteria in order to be justified as an extraordinary measure of intervention:

1. Just Cause - Is the threat a "serious and irreparable harm occurring to human beings"?[16]
2. Right Intention - Is the main intention of the military action to prevent human suffering or are there other motives?[17]
3. Final Resort - Has every other measure besides military invention been taken into account? (This does not mean that every measurement has to be applied and failed, but that there are reasonable grounds to believe that only military action would work in that situation)[17]
4. Legitimate Authority
5. Proportional Means - Are the minimum necessary military means applied to secure human protection?[17]
6. Reasonable Prospect - Is it likely that military action will succeed in protecting human life, and are the consequences of this action sure not to be worse than no action at all?[17]

[quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect

Israeli Airstrikes Hit Western Desperation in Syria (and vid)

http://rt.com/news/damascus-syria-explosions-sunday-831

"Strong blasts hit the outskirts of the Syrian capital early on Sunday..."

US Fails to Apply Libya Model to Syria: Don Debar (and vid)

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/05/05/301870/us-fails-to-apply-libya-...

"Press TV has conducted an interview with Don Debar.."

False Flag Undertakings Provide Pretext for US Wars (and vid)

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/05/05/301987/false-flags-predicate-us...

"All of this is by way of accelerating, as Wilkerson has decribed, false flag undertakings that provide a rationale and pretext for long established plans the US and Israel have for waging war in the region. Analyst Ralph Schoenman interviewed."

John Baird Clarifies Canada's Position Against Military Campaign in Syria

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/john-baird-clarifies-canada...

"Mr Baird was asked on the program: 'Does Canada support discussions that are under way right now among our allies about a wider air campaign against Syrian targets? He responded by saying: 'Listen, I mean obviously we're talking with our allies.'

Mr Baird left no ambiguity, however, about the question of arming Syrian rebels trying to overthrow the government. He said the Canadian government, unlike many of its allies, remains opposed to arming the Syrian opposition over fears that the weapons will fall into the hands of 'radical jihadists making their way into Syria and infesting part of the opposition. This causes great concern. It's no longer just a few hundred al-Qaeda affliliated people, it's a substantial number of radical extremists that have come from all over the world,' Mr Baird said..."

Syria Crisis: UN's Del Ponte Says Evidence Rebels Used Sarin

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188

"Testimony from victims of the Syrian conflict suggests rebels have used the nerve agent sarin, according to a leading UN investigator. Carla del Ponte told Swiss TV there were 'strong concrete suspicions but not yet 'incontrovertible proof'. However, she said her panel had not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons..."

Quote:

U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday. The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

Syrian Rebels Burn and Plunder Religious Sites - Human Rights Watch

http://rt.com/news/rebels-attack-religious-sites-580/

The Israel-Jihadist Alliance  -  by Justin Raimondo

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/05/05/the-israeli-jihadist-allia...

"Israel bombs Damascus - and the cat is out of the bag."

Israel Grants Oil Rights in Syria to Murdoch and Rothschild  -  by Craig Murray

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/02/israel-grants-oil-rights-...

"Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights, to Genie Energy. Major shareholders of Genie Energy - which also has interests in shale gas in the US and shale oil in Israel - includes Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild. Israel tried to make the same move twenty years ago but was forced to back down after a strong reaction from the Syrian governmnent..."

RT: Breaking The Set (and vid)

http://rt.com/shows/breaking-set-summary/economics-massacre-syria-war-924

"BTS wraps up the show with a look at the conflicting reports about chemical weapons being used and Syrian news of Israeli airstrikes in Damascus and the importance of taking corporate news on this issue with a grain of salt.."

contrarianna wrote:

North Star wrote:

Christian and moslems fight together with the FSA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZzirNzVcV4

Quote:

He tells that this regime is not against Muslims only, but against all Syrians regardless of their religions and beliefs. He says, "God willing, we are coming for you Assad and we will liberate Aleppo, Damascus and all Syria. We will liberate the archaeological areas and the Islamic and Christian holy places."

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=14c_1358474809#v4TGW37JyJRtJ48M.99 

Thanks very much for your video of the masked, absurd, "Jesus Christ Brigade" with it's massive crosses and bristling weaponry--a Pythonesque must-watch video.

It would be as comical as you and your inanities-- were it not for the reality of religious persecution,  ethnic division, displacement, and terror which marks your vile bloodthirsty "humanitarian revolution" and this West-promoted slaughter.

The Assad dictatorship sustained a secularist ability to maintain religious co-existence among its diverse populations. Something that the islamicist FSA and the more successful  Al Nusra / al-Qa’ida fighters will hardly encourage if they are triumphant.

Quote:

Al-Qa’ida in Iraq declares takeover of leading Syrian rebel group
....
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qa’ida’s umbrella organisation in Iraqsaid: “It’s now time to declare in front of the people of the Levant and the world that al-Nusra Front is but an extension of the Islamic State of Iraq and part of it.” The United States has labelled al-Nusra a “terrorist” group.

Al-Nusra has been at the forefront of the fighting in and around Aleppo and appears to have been behind a series of car bombings in Damascus. Some 15 people were killed by a suicide bomber who blew himself up near the Central Bank in Damascus on Monday. Its use of suicide bombers, foreign volunteers and fundamentalist rhetoric, targeting non-Sunni Syrians as heretics or disbelievers, is similar to the tactics and ideology of al-Qa’ida in Iraq....

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/alqaida-in-iraq-declares-takeover-of-leading-syrian-rebel-group-29189183.html

Quote:

Assad’s Unlikely Allies: Who In The West Is Supporting The Maligned Syrian Dictator, And Why
By Maya Shwayder | April 20 2013 8:35 AM
....
Among those minority communities are Syrian Christians, both in the U.S. and in Syria, who have expressed a fervent hope that their group, now numbering less than 35,000 in Syria, might continue to live in peace under Assad. Theirs is a fight for survival, not necessarily a political maneuver. “Under his government, Christians have been free to worship and live their lives,” said the Rev. Thomas Zain, an American-born Syrian Christian, who currently serves as archpriest and dean of the St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, N.Y. “We’re afraid of what might come.”

Both Zain and the Most Rev. Cyril Aphrem Karim, the archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church for the Eastern U.S., pointed to what has happened to the Christian communities in Iraq, Egypt and Libya since those countries’ respective strongmen fell. The Iraqi Christian community has all but fled, while Coptic Christians in Egypt have been the target of violent attacks. “If this regime is toppled, our people will suffer tremendously,” said Karim....

http://www.ibtimes.com/assads-unlikely-allies-who-west-supporting-maligned-syrian-dictator-why-1205445

So you think Syrians are incapable of ruling themselves and they need a strong paternalist dictator to keep the peace? 

Wow, the left can be pretty embarassing these days.

And I find it hilarious that all of a sudden these "anti-imperialists" are now terrified of Al-Qaeda...

Israel's 'Act of War' Against Syria - Madness or Cold Calculation?  -  by F William Engdahl

http://rt.com/op-edge/israels-syria-madness-cold-calculation-943/

"Israel's bombing of Syria is a sign Tel Aviv and Washington are preparing international opinion, and gearing up for a full-scale Libya-style NATO-IDF air campaign to obliterate Syria. Is anyone for the rule of international law, notions of just and unjust wars, classical diplomacy and basic human rights for a change?"

Russia, US to Push for Global Syria Conference to Bring Conflicting Sides to Table

http://rt.com/news/kerry-lavrov-putin-syria-958/

"Russia and the US reiterated their commitment to bring the sides of the Syria conflict to the negotiating table, and have announced an international conference to be called by the end of May.."

North Star]</p> <p>[quote wrote:

So you think Syrians are incapable of ruling themselves and they need a strong paternalist dictator to keep the peace? 

Wow, the left can be pretty embarassing these days.

And I find it hilarious that all of a sudden these "anti-imperialists" are now terrified of Al-Qaeda...

And I find it hillarious that those so worried about Al-Qaeda are not.  

CrossTalk: Israel Vs Syria (and vid)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-b9BYAoQPI

"With the Israeli bombing of Syria, will the Syrian civil war spread throughout the region? What is Israel's political calculation here? Is Obama's red line regarding chemical weapons just a hoax? And what will happen in Syria if there is a regime change? CrossTalking with Pepe Escobar, Christopher Chiwis and Geoffrey Ingersoll."

Syrian Rebels Abduct 4 UN Peackeepers Near Golan Heights

http://rt.com/news/un-peacekeepers-syria-rebels-956/

"Syrian rebels have abducted four UN peacekeepers monitoring a ceasefire line between Syria and the Israel-occupied  Golan Heights, a UN peacekeeping spokesman has said..."

contrarianna wrote:

North Star wrote:

So you think Syrians are incapable of ruling themselves and they need a strong paternalist dictator to keep the peace? 

Wow, the left can be pretty embarassing these days.

I don't know which Syrians  will have an opportunity to, "rule themselves",  but "peace"  now has very little meaning in in that carnal house of 70000+ dead and millions displaced.  The fact that many Syrians support Assad staying in power is the only reason he is still around (for the moment) so don't talk stupid about "the Syrians" as if they were of one voice like your precious "Jesus Christ Brigade".

North Star wrote:

And I find it hilarious that all of a sudden these "anti-imperialists" are now terrified of Al-Qaeda...

And I find it revealing that you think "anti-imperialists" would  naturally be  in favour of al Qaeda and foreign jihadists--especially since you are the one defending them.

 

I'm defending the right of Syrians to resist a 40+ year old dictatorship. Are there Islamist forces involved? Absolutely, but it is far more complex than that. Secular and democratic Syrians have to do their part to make sure the revolution is completed. Go ahead and believe the New York Times when it says that only Jihadis are the Syrian rebels fighting Assad's government. Just like they said that Saddam had WMDs. 

I said Secular and Democratic. One can be democratic and religious, wishing to avoid sectarian violence so there is no contradiction there. Secondly the NYT need not support Assad but I wouldn't be surprised if it's being fed questionable info  so that the US can slowly avoid getting sucked into the conflict. All the anti-imperialists were running around absolutely convinced it was just a matter of time before NATO had a no fly zone or even boots on the ground. Obama and the rest of the West are clearly now backpedaling.

It's quite clear that the US is now happy to see both sides kill each other and leave Israel to eliminate any weapons depot that make them nervous. Yes it's a mess. There are outside forces involved but that doesn't mean there's not a revolution going on inside of Syria. God forbid people actually do some serious analysis on the situation while the other half of the left cheers on a regime that has cut deals with Western imperialism before and carried out painful neoliberal reforms which caused suffering among the Syrian working classes:

http://darthnader.net/2013/04/13/what-is-a-proxy-war/