How can peace in Syria be achieved?

[HoverBoarder]

Sept., Libyan fighters and weapons start arriving in notable numbers to bolster the fight. October, November Dec, deathtoll of all combined reaches reported 3-5,000, regime forces pulled out of Homs to appease Arab League, sinister snipers remain and shoot Sari Saoud and 19 others Nov. 26, for just one of many, many such incidents.

And it was somewhere right around there, you guys think, that opponents of the government decided enough was enough and finally took up arms?

So around a thousand to a few thousand protesters killed. Good enough, thanks for the timeline.

 

[HoverBoarder]

The Russian government controlled propaganda station, RT, is already playing down expectations of Brahimi's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday:

Which could possibly meant that they will not support any peace plan for Syria that Brahimi comes up with, or they could just be tempering expectations or shifting the blame from their support in continuing and perpetuating the Syrian conflict.

Regardless, it shows that it is not going to be an easy meeting for Brahimi in convincing one of the main supporters of the conflict to change course.

It is probably one of the most important meetings that Brahimi will have though. A meeting with the foreign minister of a country that could single handedly end the conflict at any time they wanted to.

All things considered, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Putin was currently looking for a face saving way of getting out of the Assad business. Not sure any of the players are interested in helping him out with that.

Actually, there are a lot of people who want Putin to get out of the Assad murder business.

Russia has been looking for a way to safeguard their assets without looking like that is what they were doing all along.


One of the ways to do that is to make them one of the major peacekeeping forces in the country. It would be a good way to make sure that Assad's regime forces don't fire on them, and if Saudi Arabia or other forces that are more aligned with the FSA are involved, it would be a deterrent for the FSA to fire on them as well.

If there is going to be a serious peace, BOTH sides should be required to move all of their arms far away from the frontline.

Disarming the regime and the FSA is going to be hard while the other side has weapons on the front line. So one way to accomplish that is to require that both sides move their arms far away from the frontline, and an enormous buffer zone be created to ensure that no fighting occurs during the negotiations.


Declaring a ceasefire that all sides declare no intention of abiding by is not going to bring peace. We need serious plans that are going to bring about peace, and a buffer zone that includes Russian involvement could be one of the best ways to bring about peace.

 

[HoverBoarder]

That how peace CAN be achieved is less important than how it SHOULD be achieved. That's a moral or ideological call, but one based on one's understanding of facts on the ground.

Which is interstingly one of the same reasons why I have called you out on dishonest information that you have posted in the past.

What you want to believe is not always what happens in reality.


Any serious peace cannot just give the Syrian regime a free pass because you want to.

On the same token, neither should the FSA or other rebel groups be given a free pass.


But just rooting for one side while ignoring 95-99% of the facts on the ground is not going to get us anywhere close to peace.

Assad has shown that he is not able to control his regime forces from going on mass killing sprees on the Syrian people. And neither does the FSA have full control of the many rebel groups.


Both sides are going to have to be seperated and restrained if there is going to be a viable peace agreement. Some of those areas where a buffer zone can be created are more upfront. Some areas like Damascus are more difficult.


However, the more I analyze it, them more I think a buffer zone would be one of the best ways to achieve a viable peace plan. Along with monitoring of prisoner detention areas on both sides.


Either that, or we could just continue with Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Qatar supplying both sides with an endless supply of weapons until each side works to blow the other side into oblivion (which could go on for many years).


There is always going to be discrepancy on the facts, and we are never going to fully solve that. Whether soldiers were killed for refusing to kill protesters, or whether they were killed by militants. Whether the thousands of artillery shells and air strikes were justified or not. etc. etc.

Of course everyone should continue to work towards ferrying out the truth on the ground, and of course you should have a right to support the side that you want to support; but if all you are doing is cheerleading and compiling propaganda information that is full of factual holes, than you are choosing to do so at the sake of the Syrian people.

The Syrian people deserve more than mindless cheerleading, and cherry picking dishonest information. I think that you should put the Syrian need for peace above your own personal political views.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Working for the 'butcher'

A CNN interview with Abdullah al-Omar talks about how he for five years worked under the regime and "invented stories that helped justify the crimes committed by the Syrian regime."

Omar included photos of himself with top Iranian officials in Beirut. Iranian officials who he said met with Assad "almost daily, four to five times a week." Omar noted how he was directed to invent lies to protect the regime from stories about attacks and defections.

After defecting himself after no longer being able to justify his support for the regime. Omar noted how he cried when he returned to his hometown and saw first hand the damage that had been done to it by the regime he had helped support. He noted how he "went to apologize to the Syrian people because he worked for this butcher, this killer regime."

 

[HoverBoarder]

The news article of the interview can be found here:

Defecting Syrian propagandist says his job was 'to fabricate'

In case there is any doubt, he is quick to show photos in his phone as proof.

Scores of photographs show the corpulent Syrian beaming and shaking hands with government ministers, foreign dignitaries, and even the Syrian president.

"He knew me by name," al-Omar said, pointing to a photo of himself standing with Bashar al-Assad.

...

Al-Omar claims that for five years he worked in the press office of the presidential palace in Damascus, as part of a 15-person team under the direction of long-time government spokeswoman and presidential adviser Bouthaina Shabaan.

Until he defected and fled the Syrian capital last month, al-Omar said, the bulk of his work consisted of lying.

"Our job was to fabricate, make deceptions and cover up for Bashar al-Assad's crimes," he said.

During a four-hour interview in Istanbul, al-Omar described in detail some of the propaganda methods used by pro-government media.

During the government's artillery bombardment of the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr in the city of Homs, loyalist women were brought in and disguised as locals for government television interviews, he said.
"The women would say that the massacres against men, women and children were perpetrated by armed gangs, when it was actually the Syrian regime, security forces and the Shabiha" -- the pro-government militia -- "who were behind these horrendous acts," al-Omar said.

These claims are backed by the accounts of residents of Homs, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal at the hands of Syrian security forces.

I remember that day as if it was yesterday, when state TV showed Assad parading through Baba Amr, not a single resident was from the area," said a native of Homs, now exiled to neighboring Lebanon. "They brought them from neighboring towns from the countryside so they could pretend he was getting a hero's welcome, that he was greeted as a beloved leader, when in reality everyone in Homs knew he was behind the destruction of every house and the killing of every innocent civilian on Homs and every other city in Syria."

 

[trustbutverify]

Actually, there are a lot of people who want Putin to get out of the Assad murder business.

Up until recently, I agreed, but I'm starting to have doubts. Obviously, the Baathist's dwindling ally pool wants nothing of the sort. And I'm getting the impression many international actors, despite public statements to the contrary, aren't particularly dreading the prospect of Russia going down with Assad's brutal ship.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So around a thousand to a few thousand protesters killed. Good enough, thanks for the timeline.

LOSE again, slow learner. Did you see armed fighting emerged within the first few weeks? You said 3,000-5,000 PROTESTERS killed before arms were taken up. It was a bad reading, you never admitted it, you now say close enough, 1-3,000? No, another made up claim. Looks like about 30 or so PROTESTERS were killed before armed rebels, police, and soldiers started joining the lineup from the beginning of this "peaceful protest" movement.

You acknowledge your mistakes, you said. Maybe you should fudge it down no to 500-1,000 protesters?

What you want to believe is not always what happens in reality.

Like that guy who says he's been a huge liar in the past - never trust a liar. He might be lying now, about his past lying. But hey, words = reality, so long as it conforms to your beliefs.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Like that guy who says he's been a huge liar in the past - never trust a liar. He might be lying now, about his past lying. But hey, words = reality, so long as it conforms to your beliefs.

Interesting how HB omitted that - mentioned even by Ivan Watson - from his summary of the video and from his quote, isn't it? ... look where he has the three dots, and look what he omitted two paragraphs later with no dots. At least honest quoting would be nice.

Waste of time.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Interesting how HB omitted that - mentioned even by Ivan Watson - from his summary of the video and from his quote, isn't it? ... look where he has the three dots, and look what he omitted two paragraphs later with no dots. At least honest quoting would be nice.

Waste of time.

Not a complete waste, but yeah, I've said myself I'm done, a few times. But leaving those victory dances not tripped up... well, our site's down. And starting a list of early rebel violence was useful, as was getting a grip on the climbing death toll of PEOPLE over the months.

But yeah, that is quite interesting.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/world/meast/syria-propagandist-defects/index.html

It is impossible to independently confirm al-Omar's claims. The fact that he freely admits to a career as a government propagandist makes him a somewhat unreliable whistle-blower.

Not for Hover Boarder! Reliable enough to challenge everything the government ever said about "terrorists," its code word for "protesters," reliable enough to cut out the overly-scrupulous journalist's caveat, to protect us from doubt.

Defecting soldiers fight. Defecting propagandists do what?

 

[Childlike Empress]

And Ivan Watson is, that's why I said "even", far from over-scrupulous. One of the "embedded" "journalists" - even deeper in it than Chulov. Maybe i'll look up some "nice" stories I remember on occasion - and yes, your collection down on the last page was far from a waste of time for the audience, nice work. Just wanted to indicate that nobody should expect me to chime in much here.

 

[Toontown]

Still trying to achieve peace in Syria?

Get those death counts right, goddammit. Stop fudging, goddammit. There isn't going to be any peace in Syria until every death is accurately accounted for, judged, and correctly assigned to a side. Eventually, the side judged as having caused the fewest wrongful deaths will be declared the winner, and then there will be peace.

 

[Virus]

Peace is achieved by one side destroying the other, or by both sides getting sick of fighting.

So what's better for the West? The regime losing because it's an enemy of the West.

 

[HoverBoarder]

LOSE again, slow learner. Did you see armed fighting emerged within the first few weeks? You said 3,000-5,000 PROTESTERS killed before arms were taken up. It was a bad reading, you never admitted it, you now say close enough, 1-3,000? No, another made up claim. Looks like about 30 or so PROTESTERS were killed before armed rebels, police, and soldiers started joining the lineup from the beginning of this "peaceful protest" movement.

You acknowledge your mistakes, you said. Maybe you should fudge it down no to 500-1,000 protesters?

I think it was super great that you selectively posted a bunch of information from Wikipedia.

Which, when you actually read it shows that there were around a thousand or more protesters killed before there was any major armed rebellion against the regime.

All of that strawman avoidance of the issues was for nothing. Now you can actually address the 95-99% of things that you have been ignoring. Or maybe just find a new excuse for why you can't address them.

Maybe you can make another dishonest video about Houla that doesn't show anything close to what you claim it does, and then complain about how no one is paying attention to how your personal views and collection of propaganda are fully contradicted by the only official investigation into the case.

Like that guy who says he's been a huge liar in the past - never trust a liar. He might be lying now, about his past lying. But hey, words = reality, so long as it conforms to your beliefs.

Pretty typical response.


Does it matter that the reports he helped fabricate are the same reports you take at face value?

Yet anything he says for the other side while detailing the dishonest practices of the Assad regime 'must surely be false.'


Or the CE claim about the support of trucked in 'residents' in Homs who just LOVE Assad for bombing the crap out of the entire city.

Now that surely is a fine example of honest analysis from the both of you.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Up until recently, I agreed, but I'm starting to have doubts. Obviously, the Baathist's dwindling ally pool wants nothing of the sort. And I'm getting the impression many international actors, despite public statements to the contrary, aren't particularly dreading the prospect of Russia going down with Assad's brutal ship.

Russia will not go down on the sinking Assad ship. If anything, they are benefiting from it. They will just continue to make money off of arms sales up until the inevitable end of the conflict, and at which point they will just feign ignorance for their part in it.


Honestly, they probably would make more money by continuing the conflict, and continue to get as much back from arms sales as they can. Most of their financial assets in the country have been destroyed, so they might as well recoup as much money as they can somehow.


If they did decide to change course, it would only be because they decide to put the moral argument of ending the needless killing of tens of thousands of Syrians through taking a chance on an unsure peace process, above sticking with the sure route of continuing to get a steady stream of money from arms sales.

So far, they have shown little interest in peace, and it would take some pretty masterful convincing by Brahimi to make them change course.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Peace is achieved by one side destroying the other, or by both sides getting sick of fighting.

So what's better for the West? The regime losing because it's an enemy of the West.

I'm interested in what's better for Syria, how to end the conflict, and looking at the reasons for why Syria decided to go the route of Bahrain and Iran instead of Tunisia.

I don't think that peace will be achieved when one side actually destroys the other, I think it will more likely happen when one side gets a large enough advantage that the people aligned with the other side decide to break ranks.

The Alawites just need a viable way out to break with the Assad regime without being targeted for retaliatory attacks for the war crimes of the Assad regime.

That is what the UN should be focusing on rather than doomed to fail cease fire proposals.


Waiting until one side destroys the other is not something that a lot of Syrians want to happen.


If enough of the FSA is destroyed, there will just be another conflict down the road. Same if the Alawites, Christians, and Kurds feel persecuted by the new government. Those are the type of issue that the UN can, and should be working on addressing right now.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I think it was super great that you selectively posted a bunch of information from Wikipedia.

Sure. The sources are there to check if you have any doubts.

Which, when you actually read it shows that there were around a thousand or more protesters killed before there was any major armed rebellion against the regime.

Oh you love it now. Don't suppose you can explain how this particular range is suggested? It's not done explicitly anyway. As usual, you fail to specify any dates for your "before" type words. And now you've inserted "major" to the fighting part, so your definition of major is an issue. Previously it was no fighters, so everyone killed by anyone MUST be protesters/non-combatants killed by their government, you decided, running up to October-December. Now you seem to acknowledge fighting, just not major fighting, of the kind that kills 120 soldiers on June 6, for example.

To clarify my point, about 35 dead by the start of rebel violence, I meant by March 25, and that's a rough call, not firmly researched. And the right date to start counting is debatable, of course, considering the nature of the info, but clearly it's way before October.

All of that strawman avoidance of the issues was for nothing.

Nope. Never a total waste, but I appreciate your effort to convince me otherwise.

Now you can actually address the 95-99% of things that you have been ignoring. Or maybe just find a new excuse for why you can't address them.

All at once or what? It's more like 90-95%, and as you've been reminded, I'm not ignoring it, in the usual use of the word. I've addressed a good chunk of everything you'e tossed at me, besides what I've read around and even researched a bit, besides the few things I'm exprt in by now. Again, let me know when you really study even 1% of it, rather than just taking everything anti-Syria at face value.

Have you ever tried to address the big Houla massacre portion we have covered? Some of the world's foremost experts on it, right here waiting for the debunks. It would be cute to see you attempt it, rather than ignoring 60-80% of our work in that thread, and the rest of it elsewhere.

Maybe you can make another dishonest video about Houla that doesn't show anything close to what you claim it does,

Another in addition to what? That's a serious point in my book, worth explaining if you can; what video doesn't show what I claim it does? Can you explain that decision?

and then complain about how no one is paying attention to how your personal views and collection of propaganda are fully contradicted by the only official investigation into the case.

It's not complaining, it's rubbing it in the cowards' faces, including you foremost, that no one has an answer for the growing body of good, often visually verifiable, evidence that the rebels lied to us about their sick massacre in Taldou. And most of us don't care, having only ever wanted an excuse to hate on Saddam Slobodan Gaddafi Assad, not real truth.

Pretty typical response.

Does it matter that the reports he helped fabricate are the same reports you take at face value?

That he claims he fabricated, and what I do is refuse to dismiss and ignore the reports from Syria that most people, like you, have always ignored before this jackass ever gave you the lame excuse.

Yet anything he says for the other side while detailing the dishonest practices of the Assad regime 'must surely be false.'

Yeah, sort of a logical dilemma in that, like the Epimenides paradox in reverse. How can I take his claim of being a liar as a sign that he's lying now, meaning he wasn't then, meaning he's to be trusted, except that he must be lying now...

Obviously, that was just a fun mechanism. Point is, he could be lying, and you in fact omitted the one part where that was mentioned even in passing, apparently hoping your readers would forget there's any such possibility as you insist we "address" (take at face value) what he says.

I posed a simple question and I'll pose it again:

Defecting soldiers fight. Defecting propagandists do what?

They say things like this:

"One day I saw [Bashar Al-Assad] kicking a table and he was cursing and swearing against the people of Homs, Rastan and Daraa, and he verbally abused the Sunnis and the Syrian people in general."

Totally subjective, to be sure, but I call bull on that. It just sounds like propaganda.

"He would get very angry and swear, cursing the secret police and security forces saying, why can't they find out where these reporters are, capture them and 'bring them to me so that I can kill them.'"

There is no way to confirm al-Omar's claims, but several foreign reporters have lost their lives in Syria this year.

And on that. To be sure, journalists are being killed there, and dead journos are no good for Damascus. They're actively engaged in propaganda war against the government and everyone knows it, so when they wind up dead, everyone knows just who did it, and with a sinister cackle. Consider Alex Thomson, shot dead with his crew by army snipers as he tried to cover a massacre quite like Houla and near to it in time and space.

Or the CE claim about the support of trucked in 'residents' in Homs who just LOVE Assad for bombing the crap out of the entire city.

Where did she claim trucked-in residents loved Assad?

Yeah, I call crap on that story too. Plenty of Assad supporters actually lived there, as everywhere in Syria, except places made into ghost towns by fighting after the armed rebels took up operations there.

Odd that he cites "massacres against men, women and children" in Homs by "security forces and the Shabiha" when the truth, according to rebels then, was there were no massacres really, just lots of shelling. It was the gov. people and the alleged witnesses they spoke to who said people were being kidnapped and killed, mutilated, and passed off as shelling victims. His truth seems to be different from the rebel truth, almost as if they were made up independently without coordinating.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Still trying to achieve peace in Syria?

Get those death counts right, goddammit. Stop fudging, goddammit.

I'm with you so far, but then there was some cartoonish exaggeration and unwarranted sarcasm.

There isn't going to be any peace in Syria until every death is accurately accounted for, judged, and correctly assigned to a side. Eventually, the side judged as having caused the fewest wrongful deaths will be declared the winner, and then there will be peace.

Nope. Virus is about on mark, however.

Peace is achieved by one side destroying the other, or by both sides getting sick of fighting.

So what's better for the West? The regime losing because it's an enemy of the West.

The crusader hits the nail on the head, actually. What's better for the 21 million people of Syria might well be different, but honey badger don't care.

Did you know - peace could also be achieved by the rebels giving up, running away, or losing? Why is that never considered as an option, however much sense it might make and however many lives it might save?

(There are reasons for the giving, of course, just not good ones)

 

[Virus]

Did you know - peace could also be achieved by the rebels giving up, running away, or losing? Why is that never considered as an option, however much sense it might make and however many lives it might save?

Because the regime will round lots of people up, torture and execute them to set an example. You'd know that if you were honest with yourself about the pro-Nazi regime you're defending.

 

[JihadJane]

Most of the time he's a good guy.

He gets exasperated about the situation in the middle east and I can't say that I blame him, either. It's a distant regional pissing contest and it seems to be threatening to drag the rest of the world into it.

I doubt it's going to end up with everyone smiling in the end.

No one needs to "drag the rest of the world into it". Your friend needs to learn some history. The Middle East is not a weird foreign place separate from the West. The West has been intimately involved with it, carving it up while encouraging its worst elements and suppressing its best, for over a century.

 

[Virus]

No one needs to "drag the rest of the world into it". Your friend needs to learn some history. The Middle East is not a weird foreign place separate from the West. The West has been intimately involved with it, carving it up while encouraging its worst elements and suppressing its best, for over a century.

Leftist ideology ≠ history.