Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[funk de fino]

Ohcome on, it wasn't that long ago.


Does she really? That would be a silly and straw-stuffed thing to believe. How about this - anyone:
- wearing a Syrian army uniform, especially a torn, blood-stained one, and firing weapons that once belonged to the Syrian army
- doing things that make no sense for the government to do, like massacring babies (allegedly loyalist and Alawite AND Sunni opposition) right before big UN meetings and visits, always putting more pressure on the government...
- should not be presumed to be a real Syrian army
- should be suspected of being an opposition false-flagger
- ergo questions and suspicions and correlating evidence are extremely valid to consider, instead of just ridiculing.

But that's coming from another "fooled" person speaking to person who's had the crystaline reality of things revealed by CNN and the BBC, quoting one side's "activists," oracles of truth they are.

Seen any dark skinned "Syrians" yet? Glad you finally came to the party on Syria.

 

[Mycroft]

What a convenient razor!

"All war is deception." - Sun Tzu, Chinese General and Author, b.500 BC

What's convenient is how you've adopted a worldview where all you need to do is to imagine something, and that's all the evidence you need to believe it's true. That's how even intelligent and educated people come to believe silly things like the World Trade Center was destroyed by Direct Energy Weapons.

Yes, deception is a part of war, but that's not evidence that any one hypothetical deception is true. Further, the saying is true both ways. Bashar al-Assad is also waging war, and his motivations about being deceptive are clear.

SOHR says thousands of Syrian army have defected. I believe many probably have. Surely they could have supplied at least some uniforms?

Oh sure. It's also possible the rebels have enlisted the help of the IMF. Even if you witness Assad making incriminating statements or personally conducting a war crime, you can always presume it really a secret agent impersonating him with the help of some top quality Hollywood special effects.

 

[A'isha]

On NPR this morning, they had an interview with the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, who is quoted as saying,

What's happened since the beginning of this uprising, Sunnis, and particularly the enlisted soldiers, have been defecting. So the army is not reliable. In order to make up for that, the regime has been cycling in the Shabiha, who are smugglers and related to the president's family, but strongmen who aren't in the system, the military system.

He also notes that the Alawites have been ethnically cleansing Sunni villages (though he doesn't think that's in preparation for a separatist Alwaite state), and revenge killings in those and other villages is likely.

 

[JihadJane]

What's convenient is how you've adopted a worldview where all you need to do is to imagine something, and that's all the evidence you need to believe it's true.

Strawman.

I don't "believe it's true", I don't know whether it's true or not, but I do believe that it's likely that "rebels" would have an interest in trying to force an intervention, Libya-style.

That's how even intelligent and educated people come to believe silly things like the World Trade Center was destroyed by Direct Energy Weapons.

Is there an equivalent to Godwin's Law for this? Please try harder next time!

Yes, deception is a part of war, but that's not evidence that any one hypothetical deception is true. Further, the saying is true both ways. Bashar al-Assad is also waging war, and his motivations about being deceptive are clear.

The witnesses accounts are not hypothetical. Western propaganda is devoted to swinging the pendulum of lies and disinformation in only one direction.

Recognizing that "All War is Deception" is more useful than Occam's tired Razor in this case.

Oh sure. It's also possible the rebels have enlisted the help of the IMF.

More likely Al-Qaida affiliates than Mission Impossible. It wouldn't be the first time that the US has found it expedient to work with such groups.

Reminder: We talking about the real world. US agencies really do engage in international espionage.

Even if you witness Assad making incriminating statements or personally conducting a war crime, you can always presume it really a secret agent impersonating him with the help of some top quality Hollywood special effects.

That's another rather desperate strawman you built there, Mycroft!

 

[JihadJane]

An interesting discussion on the history and current state of Syrian and regional politics:

'Between Imperialism and Repression'

By Sami Ramadani, Samuel Grove

"Sami Ramadani is a senior lecturer in sociology at London Metropolitan University and has been an active participant in campaign's against Saddam's regime and anti-imperialist struggles for many years. In an in-depth interview, he spoke to Samuel Grove about the dynamics of the conflict in Syria, arguing that democratic resistance to Assad's brutal regime has been eclipsed by reactionary forces, backed by Western and Gulf states, with potentially momentous implications for the Middle East.


Interviewer: The upheaval in Syria is an enormously difficult subject for Western outsiders to get a handle on. One of the reasons for this is the sheer number of different interests jostling for position and power, from both within and outside the country. Let us start with the regime itself. Can you give us a brief history of where the Al-Assad family came from and the direction they have taken the country since they came to power in 1970?"

 

[Caustic Logic]

Mycroft: So if I read you right, Occan's Razor here suggests it's more logical to presume
A: Assad's forces are insane and suicidal enough to be carrying out all these massacre, cartoonishly leaving all the clues for the Sunni witnesses to report, forcing the West's hand to stop the madness

than to consider

B: False-flag attacks to help press greater outside attacks on the government, because impersonating people happens on TV shows and this is real life

And the outcome of the reasoning deals with the fate of a nation of millions of people.

For the record, a BBC report "backing up" to some attempted balance point?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2012/06/reporting_conflict_in_syria.html

Damascus prides itself on being the oldest, continually inhabited city in the world. It also has the longest history of rumours passing for fact.

It's a mess of a piece, methinks, designed to look balanced but go nowhere.

In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner.

So now it's "western officials say?" Because these things look like Islamist methods like the gov. said? Did the Syrian government backtrack on the claims? I doubt it.

Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre,

Still doubtful in fact

the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear.

Not according to the trusted eyewitnesses. He won't call them liars, and they'll come out on top again. And the "why" is pretty clear from one side, more murky from the other. The Beeb is still on the other, where "evil" + "something" is the motive for the regime/Shahiba.

In such circumstances, it's more important than ever that we report what we don't know, not merely what we do. In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it's not clear who ordered the killings - or why.

Yeah, this is no direction change, just some milling around in a circle for a moment staring at one's shoes. When something further happens, we'll snap out of it, say the small doubts don't matter. We're pretty sure what needs done and let's do it.

 

[trustbutverify]

What's convenient is how you've adopted a worldview where all you need to do is to imagine something, and that's all the evidence you need to believe it's true. That's how even intelligent and educated people come to believe silly things like the World Trade Center was destroyed by Direct Energy Weapons.

Yes, deception is a part of war, but that's not evidence that any one hypothetical deception is true. Further, the saying is true both ways. Bashar al-Assad is also waging war, and his motivations about being deceptive are clear.




Oh sure. It's also possible the rebels have enlisted the help of the IMF. Even if you witness Assad making incriminating statements or personally conducting a war crime, you can always presume it really a secret agent impersonating him with the help of some top quality Hollywood special effects.

At least you didn't start talking holograms.

 

[angrysoba]

On NPR this morning, they had an interview with the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, who is quoted as saying,



He also notes that the Alawites have been ethnically cleansing Sunni villages (though he doesn't think that's in preparation for a separatist Alwaite state), and revenge killings in those and other villages is likely.

Thanks for that. It's very interesting and troubling.

I think that it has been obvious for a while that there has been a lot of defections from the Syrian army. Presumably this does make it difficult to work out who is shooting who at some points.

If he is correct about the Alawite ethnic cleansing of Sunnis them come the overthrow of the regime it seems we can only expect revenge massacres of Alawites on a huge scale.

 

[A'isha]

If he is correct about the Alawite ethnic cleansing of Sunnis them come the overthrow of the regime it seems we can only expect revenge massacres of Alawites on a huge scale.

Yes.

I fear that if Assad is overthrown and Sunnis (whether Syrian or foreign) take control of the country, the Alawite minority will be exterminated and/or expelled.

Alawites are barely one step above the Ahmadiyya when it comes to borderline-heretical-Muslim-sects-that-most-Muslims-don't-even-consider-to-be-Muslims-at-all. And that was before the "Salafist" Sunni fundamentalism of Saudi Wahhabism infected everything.

This whole thing is going to end badly for everyone involved, no matter who ends up victorious in Syria.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Yeah and there are reports of ethnic cleansing of Christians from Homs too; see earlier in thread.

A UN intervention to enforce a peace might have been an option at one point but the UN Mandated No-Fly-Zone to Regime-Change-through-Bombs shuffle NATO danced in Libya sure scuttled any chance of getting Chussia to acquiesce this time, if there was any chance of that.


I'm finding some of these Esprit de Corps editorials refreshing:

http://www.espritdecorps.ca/index.p...n-baby-killer-branding-an-old-trick-&Itemid=1

Despite the fact there has been no independent verification of who is responsible, the Assad regime has now been branded by the western media as baby killers. This was clearly illustrated in a pair of graphic editorial cartoons that appeared in Canadian newspapers last week. The first depicted a Syrian tank crewmember painting a series of baby carriages on the side of the smoking gun barrel to signify his martial pride over his recent kills. The second one showed Russian President Vladimir Putin dressed as a policeman holding back would-be rescuers, while a mad dog (the Assad regime) ravages a baby in a pram. This, of course, is not good news for al-Assad. While very few Canadians understand the complexity of Syria’s ethnic and religious factions, or have any real grasp of the regional implications in the event of a violent regime change, we all know that it is evil to kill babies.

At the turn of the last century, when a colonial war erupted in South Africa, few Canadian young men even knew what a Boer was. However, once it was proclaimed that Boers were bayoneting British babies, our recruiting centres were flooded with volunteers.

Similarly, early news reports of German “Huns” butchering Belgian babies in World War I helped inspire thousands of Canadians to enlist in the Expeditionary Force. In August 1990, following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, few Americans had much empathy for the Kuwaitis. The western media machine had long since demonized them as fat cat oil sheiks during the oil crisis in the 1970s. However, following the October 1990 testimony of a young Kuwaiti girl at a United States congressional hearing, it was revealed that the evil Iraqis were actually baby killers.

As an eyewitness, the teenager tearfully recounted how she had watched helplessly as Iraqi soldiers dumped newborns out of incubators and left them to die. Of course, it mattered not in the long run that neither the Boers nor the Huns or the Iraqis ever actually committed such atrocities. In fact, the tearful teenaged “witness” turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador who had never left the US. What is important is that baby killer equals evil, and once branded as such, any military intervention against such forces will be heartily supported.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

No corpses were found, and the team’s officials said many of the facts behind the killings, which occurred Wednesday, had yet to be determined. But it seemed clear that the perpetrators had hastily sought to conceal what had happened, reinforcing suspicions that the government, by thwarting the monitors’ efforts to reach the site on Thursday, had bought time for a cover-up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/w...s-from-a-massacre-inquiry.html?pagewanted=all

How plausible is this scenario?

We can piece together something of a timeline...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...full-horror-of-al-Qubeir-masacre-emerges.html

At 5.10pm, three hours after the attack began, Mr Hemary's brother's voice died away and he stopped answering his calls. Pushing open the door of his home several hours later, Mr Hemary found the bodies of his mother, three sisters and three brothers lying bloodied on the ground.

"They had been beaten on the head by sticks and stabbed with knives," he said. "I went to other homes. I saw family after family slaughtered by knives."

After the militia departed and al-Qubeir fell quiet later that evening, people from nearby villages ventured into the stricken hamlet. "I saw a two-month-old child without a head," said Abou Hisham al-Hamouli, who lives in a village just over a mile from al-Qubeir. "I saw the burnt corpse of a woman. Her two children were wrapped around, hugging her. They died like that. There were two many burnt bodies."

Other eyewitnesses reported how the militiamen sang songs in praise of Mr Assad.

A former soldier who joined the rebel Free Syrian Army said that he reached the village within hours of the massacre, but left quickly because Syrian government troops were still in the area. "I went into houses and saw children without a head, and others without arms. Some were burned and some were without eyes," he said.

There were only five known survivors, he added. The exact number of victims could not be confirmed, but people from the nearby village of Maarizab said they had buried 57 corpses. A further thirty bodies were missing and had not yet been buried, said activists.

With almost no foreign reporters in Syria, the accounts of what happened in this remote farming village cannot be independently verified.

So, here's the sequence of events, it seems:

Syiran bad guys attack

villagers are close enough to hear their songs (in some cases they even read slogans written on their foreheads)

syrian bad guys do the bad stuff, then leave

then the villagers come back and bury some of the dead

and make this video
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-06-07/...ashar-al-assad-syrian-crisis?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST

then the syrian bad guys come back into the village, take away the bodies that (for whatever reason) weren't buried, to cover up the massacre in time for the UN to arrive

Activists say government forces removed many of the bodies from Qubair but a number are said to have been buried in the nearby village of Maarzaf.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18364674

Not impossible, I guess.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Thanks for that. It's very interesting and troubling.

I think that it has been obvious for a while that there has been a lot of defections from the Syrian army. Presumably this does make it difficult to work out who is shooting who at some points.

I'm suspicious. Two great propaganda points for the rebels, both factually questionable. Mass defection (game over) = increasing used of brutal, perhaps mythical irregulars (game really over). Same two points, in reverse order, were made widely in Libya, with little evidence in retrospect. The sudden use of brutal African mercenaries drove the mass defections, usually taking the form of weapons handed over to rebels and defectors killed in piles by the regime for wanting to defect. (see here for explanation and argue it with me there, if you like)

I'm sure, like in Libya, there have been at least some real defectors, and probably a lot more. The whole Sunni majority thing. Some chunk of them are disgruntled and would side with the rebellion. And they'd likely bring stolen uniforms. Catain Sassy is right about that.

Might I insert a few other ways to be mistaken for the Syrian army, or Shahiba:
- use heavy artillery (only the gov. can possibly have)
- be reported as using heavy weaponry
- have an analyst mis-read dirt roads in a tree farm as proof of heavy weapons usage
- fire light weapons at UN observers
- Have anyone drive a tank
- have anyone in army uniform
- or in irregular civilian clothes, sometimes
- anyone chanting Alawite slogans/songs
- or reported as same
- anyone is killed anywhere in Syria
- activists say
- media says it can't confirm, but ...
- there are other ways (State Dept. says, etc.)

If he is correct about the Alawite ethnic cleansing of Sunnis them come the overthrow of the regime it seems we can only expect revenge massacres of Alawites on a huge scale.

Correct or even not. Belief, not fact, is what drives these things. The belief seems to be sown in a lot of minds. The facts, oh well. Maybe it's true, hopefully so, considering the course we're locked on. Occam's Razor says it's so, according to some. The payback will feature a bloodbath, perhaps managed and kept not too big. Perhaps not. So the justification better be good.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Great points lately, Cap't.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/w...s-from-a-massacre-inquiry.html?pagewanted=all

How plausible is this scenario?

Yikes. Not very, I'm afraid.

So, here's the sequence of events, it seems:

Syiran bad guys attack

villagers are close enough to hear their songs (in some cases they even read slogans written on their foreheads)

syrian bad guys do the bad stuff, then leave

then the villagers come back and bury some of the dead

and make this video
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-06-07/...ashar-al-assad-syrian-crisis?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST

I have not been up to watching the videos of any of this yet, except the one. But the government, the activists, again here activists citing video, and I hear the video record in general (anyone confirm or deny that?) testify consistently to evil and cruel killing methods in these massacres. And these methods, I just learned, Western officials deny (trying to make it all sound like artillery work, perhaps?).

This line bugs me:

"Take a look, Arabs. Take a look, Muslims. Were they terrorists? Take a look, Kofi Annan."

No, the allegation, if he were playing level, is that she was perhaps KILLED by terrorists, and would, by the "government line" (possibly TRUTH), be most likely from a loyalist/Alawite family, again. The activist man's appeals are to other Arabs, real Muslims, and the world community (derisively, naming the clown with a "peace plan"), to deliver this and other Sunni children from the evil of ethnic cleansing.

By way of war.

As always, for the children.

Okay then...

then the syrian bad guys come back into the village, take away the bodies that (for whatever reason) weren't buried, to cover up the massacre in time for the UN to arrive

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18364674

Not impossible, I guess.

No, not impossible. It's the news, however, for sure.

ETA: What the heck, semi-related. I just published a big report on a Libyan incident, involving large numbers of survivors and other "witnesses" faking a huge cover story for one the rebels' biggest war crimes. Black men were killed, eyes were removed, etc. and all white Arab unharmed survivors (51 out of 157 escaped and are on the record) tell about a million different versions. It's all pretty illustrative for how plausible the kind of conspiracies alleged here really are.
http://ciwclibya.org/reports.html

 

[Caustic Logic]

Seen any dark skinned "Syrians" yet?

Erm, I know what you mean, anyway. I recall you never letting me live down the white guy on a late-night rebel execution crew, who I first thought might be a foreigner. The people who had problems with dark skinned Libyans seen as foreign blacks and foreign blacks seen as killers one and all, in that African country (an Arab country now, by God!)... that was other people, not me.

I did hear in passing some mention after Libyan rebels started fighting in Syria, reports of African mercenaries propping up Al-Assad. I don't remember where. Either way, we probably won't see as many piles of executed black guys this time.

Glad you finally came to the party on Syria.

Glad to have taken the time to, a bit.

I almost watched a video, but decided I don't need to get even more upset and further invested in this. That's enough for one day. Already got pissed enough reflecting on Clinton's warnings that any outside power helping the Syrian government defend itself against a sick outsider-driven takeover like this, to crush the uprising before it can become full out war, will "lead to war," or "prolong the conflict," (meaning stall the State Dept goal of regime change at whatever cost)... man, and people call Assad a fascist? Okay, technically, indirectly... but this might be a bit like Poland 1939, without the USSR co-operation and divvying, and we're not like the Americans/British were in that. Food for thought, huh?

 

[Childlike Empress]

On NPR this morning, they had an interview with the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, who is quoted as saying,



He also notes that the Alawites have been ethnically cleansing Sunni villages (though he doesn't think that's in preparation for a separatist Alwaite state), and revenge killings in those and other villages is likely.

Landis is a good guy but a typical orientalist. Instead of constantly drinking the NYT kool-aid, he should spend more time reading some of the informed comments on his own lively blog.

 

[Childlike Empress]

SOHR says thousands of Syrian army have defected. I believe many probably have. Surely they could have supplied at least some uniforms?

It's a scandal in itself that the SOHR claims are still so heavily relied upon and reported in the media and even by the UN. It (both of them) is a highly questionable "organisation", more a two one-man-shows run out of the UK out-biasing each other and their claims can hardly ever be verified.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

you need more of the photos you're talking about included in your report, it would help your case. also I think some of the choice of wording / language you use will prejudice people against taking the report seriously and it's already an uphill battle for you and your team - since you haven't been to the site first hand, many people will likely immediately dismiss your report without reading it.

other than that I salute you and your team for your efforts. while there's a lot of speculation in there there's also obviously a lot of work and you definitely raise some issues that deserve the attention.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

This video claims to show a FSA captured T-72
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMcXJjU3uLs

To me that looks like a T-62...

MORE FSA/MSM LIES!
lol jk

But seriously I think it's a T-62

 

[JihadJane]

'The United Nations and the Houla Massacre: The Information Battlefield'

Discusses UN General Assembly meeting, compares Syria situation with events leading up to foreign military aggression in Yugoslavia and compiles list of links challenging Western and Arab Assad-baby-killer narrative.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

It's a scandal in itself that the SOHR claims are still so heavily relied upon and reported in the media and even by the UN. It (both of them) is a highly questionable "organisation", more a two one-man-shows run out of the UK out-biasing each other and their claims can hardly ever be verified.

Sure, but some of their claims are quite credible. For example, the SNA's use of artillery against populated areas, the execution of captured rebels, and, IMO, also the claim of defections. How many have defected is debatable, but the videos of FSA driving tanks and IFVs look legitimate enough.