Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[angrysoba]

Still no answer though why they point to these "tell-tale tracks." The tracks meander all over that small tree-farm looking area - why? They're at least three months old. What basis is there for thinking they're connected to the shelling a few days ago as opposed to lumber removal? None, as far as I can tell. Dishonest wishful thinking by a war-hungry professional "analyst" passed on uncritically by a war-hungry media outfit.

Have we looked yet?
[qimg]http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/chainsawmoth/Libyan%20Civil%20War/Syria_Houla_Tracks.jpg[/qimg]
Are JREF members smarter than BBC and more level than Forbes McKenzie?

There seems to be a certain snarky tone in the way you are talking to other JREF members here. This is strange because the responses you have received have been quite positive so far. Could it be that you are being a bit presumptuous about your audience?

 

[Caustic Logic]

There seems to be a certain snarky tone in the way you are talking to other JREF members here. This is strange because the responses you have received have been quite positive so far. Could it be that you are being a bit presumptuous about your audience?

Yeah, but not without some reason. I may also be projecting my frustration with the unquestioning complete war-zombie mindset evidenced by governments, media, etc. Apologies if I've offended anyone or turned them off, but hey, what can you expect, you darn NWO shills?

Another way of looking at it is I'm dishing the caustic on certain ideas and arguments - or even hints of them - and not the people. But in fact, I'm not getting ridiculed as an apologist for tyrants quite like I expected. The skepticism here is slightly encouraging. So keep it up, just in case it can ever grow to where it matters and helps in the world.

 

[geni]

Maybe you're right, but it looks like they're driving all over in fairly random directions, as if the goal was to cover the whole area with as many random tracks as possible. Logging roads tend to work kind of like that. Maybe artillery roads too.

I don't know. The logging around here tends to result in large scale tree clearence rather than the result we see in the pic.

Interesting background. He's of course the guy who found these tracks and told the BBC all about what they mean. Private sector solutions, gotta love 'em.

Well whats your alturnative? The US goverment people aren't going to talk and the Isreali ones are going to say even less as well as saying it in hebrew.

Or they used their effective military force (they're incapable of surprising us?) to tap into and feed the West's disputation and slaughter some innocents (Assad supporters, all specific info suggests) and blame Assad and get tons of outside support.

With no meaningful investigation, of course.

Assad has about two properly loyal divisions. If the rebels had an effective millitary force they would be running the country by now. Since they don't both the rebels and anyone standing near them are going to die.

Same point applies. Why use your weapons to create a horrible humanitarian disaster

There hasn't been a horrible humanitarian disaster. The deathtoll is still less than 10K and it would really help if you avoided that kind of emotive language.

that greatly increases the odds of a NATO bombing, and then move them to avoid NATO bombing? I don't buy this. There was no benefit to this. Either
a) the regime (or affiliates) is insane/stupid as well as evil or
b) the opposition (or affiliates) is smart and savvy and evil

Your problem is you are modeling NATO as rational actors. They are not which means that all assad can do is hope for the best while preparing for the worst. In the meantime if he wishes to remeain in power in syria then a certain amount of millitary force is going to be required.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I don't know. The logging around here tends to result in large scale tree clearence rather than the result we see in the pic.

Fair enough, although I'd have to go back and look closer. Maybe they lay the roads in advance, and/or use the roads for the water truck to water the trees. At any rate, they look like organically dense tree-access roads. Possibly also tracks where artillery regularly drives amongst the trees at random. Proof that happened on the 25th and they fired? Nil.

Well whats your alturnative? The US goverment people aren't going to talk and the Isreali ones are going to say even less as well as saying it in hebrew.

I propose tree-access roads, regularly used. I don't even think we can tell if they're "caterpillar tracks" or just dirt roads.

Assad has about two properly loyal divisions. If the rebels had an effective millitary force they would be running the country by now. Since they don't both the rebels and anyone standing near them are going to die.

I'm no expert, but I disagree. They've been under attack a lot and seem to be largely holding fast. I think it's mostly Sunni extremists who've defected. A lot of the rest of the country, civilians and not alike, genuinely fears the "freedom" the opposition seeks, and they really support the government. There have been huge pro-Assad demonstrations all across the country that the media never told you about. Way ahead of our diplomats, the media has always only talked to the "activists," and called them "the people of Syria."

There hasn't been a horrible humanitarian disaster. The deathtoll is still less than 10K and it would really help if you avoided that kind of emotive language.

I'm presuming some kind of sarcasm there. Perhaps "humanitarian disaster" is not the right phrase for this atrocity.

Your problem is you are modeling NATO as rational actors. They are not which means that all assad can do is hope for the best while preparing for the worst. In the meantime if he wishes to remeain in power in syria then a certain amount of millitary force is going to be required.

I have a problem? I question NATO's morality but not its twisted rationality. So I have to disagree there. The rest of it, fine.

Here's a thought - I've asked for evidence how we know what happened. No one's yet cited the eyewitness accounts that prove it with amazing clarity. The blood-smeared boy, especially. Why is that?

 

[geni]

Fair enough, although I'd have to go back and look closer. Maybe they lay the roads in advance, and/or use the roads for the water truck to water the trees. At any rate, they look like organically dense tree-access roads. Possibly also tracks where artillery regularly drives amongst the trees at random. Proof that happened on the 25th and they fired? Nil.


I propose tree-access roads, regularly used. I don't even think we can tell if they're "caterpillar tracks" or just dirt roads.

Bottom line is that armatures trying to interpret satellite images doesn't end well. Forbes McKenzie at least has the excuse that he has a company to drum up business for. "who now works for the commercial company that analysed the images" kinda cute don't you think? Suggests the company has employees.

I'm no expert, but I disagree. They've been under attack a lot and seem to be largely holding fast.

Do you know what happens to groups who lack heavy weapons try to hold fast against those who do and have a relaxed attitude towards collateral damage?

I think it's mostly Sunni extremists who've defected.

The majority of the Syrian army is confined to barracks their ability to defect is limited but it also prevents them from being deployed.

A lot of the rest of the country, civilians and not alike, genuinely fears the "freedom" the opposition seeks, and they really support the government. There have been huge pro-Assad demonstrations all across the country that the media never told you about. Way ahead of our diplomats, the media has always only talked to the "activists," and called them "the people of Syria."

Oh its generally accepted that the Alawites and Christians are on his side. The Kurds don't care and no one is about to start paying attention to the druze. That about 25% of the country. Problem is that most of the actual people in the army (rather than the officer class) are Sunni.

I'm presuming some kind of sarcasm there. Perhaps "humanitarian disaster" is not the right phrase for this atrocity.

As I'm sure you are aware that has been a considerable devaluation in such terms. The Nigerian-Biafran War was a horrible humanitarian disaster. Current events aren't really on that scale.

I have a problem? I question NATO's morality but not its twisted rationality. So I have to disagree there. The rest of it, fine.

I meant you can't meaningfuly predict what NATO are going to do.

Here's a thought - I've asked for evidence how we know what happened. No one's yet cited the eyewitness accounts that prove it with amazing clarity. The blood-smeared boy, especially. Why is that?

Because they speak arabic and the english speaking journalists got shelled.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Holy crap, sorry Geni. Maybe nothing, but I just had a holy crap moment. How many terrorist fighters did the Syrians say launched this whole shell-the-soldiers, shell-the-city, slaughter families operation? around 800, right?

f) At the beginning of May a ship loaded with 150 tons of weapons and mmunition destined for the rebels in Syria was detained in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli.8 “The case of the ship Lutfullah 2, which was intercepted by the Lebanese Army, proves that Libya and Turkey are cooperating with other states to send murderous weapons to terrorist groups, in order to wreak more carnage and destruction,” wrote the Syrian ambassador to the UN in a letter to the Secretary General and the Security Council.9

Lebanese authorities said they had seized a large consignment of Libyan weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades and heavy caliber ammunition, from the ship which was intercepted in the Mediterranean. These weapons probably originated in the plundered warehouses of the Libyan army. Moreover, according to Iranian sources, Abd el-Hakim Belhaj, the notorious al-Qaeda commander of the Tripoli area in Libya and a member of the Transitional Government, had conducted negotiations in Turkey with Syrian rebels regarding the supply of weapons and ammunition to rebel forces in Syria. According to the same source, Belhaj was heading a Libyan contingent of 700 fighters.

http://jcpa.org/article/alqaeda-jihadists-join-battle-syrian-regime/

Belhaj, of course, onetime military warlord of Tripoli, previously LIFG founder, negotiator of onetime merge with Al Qaeda, supposedly cancelled after Seif's reformation efforts that had them all rehabilitated and released, swearinf off terrorism - until the uprising last year. Now he's in Syria, allegedly, with a fair amount of weapons and a force the same basic size as the one cited here. Hmmm...

Oops, sorry, Iranian sources. Probably lying. Belhaj will be rebutting this - from Libya - any day now, right?

 

[Childlike Empress]

But in fact, I'm not getting ridiculed as an apologist for tyrants quite like I expected. The skepticism here is slightly encouraging.

Don't know if you followed it but in all humility I think that my months long coverage in this thread about Russia's and China's veto of UN resolutions, and taking a lot of flak as "Assad lover", kind of prepared the ground. It went from "conspiracy blogs" reporting about the foreign-financed and trained mercenaries/jihadis - while "everybody knew" that "Assad is killing his own people" - to Amnesty International condemning their activities and Clinton "worrysome" admitting Al-Qaeda involvement with overlapping goals to the US.

In the process I also heard the term "Shabiha" for the first time in some SPIEGEL horror stories, which they put out daily at the time. It appeared when it became undeniable that there are other forces than the Syrian army and "good rebels" active. I searched a bit and did not find too many sources for the term. IIRC - don't think I posted about it - it originated with a New York Times story from late last year. Could be that this "Assad thugs militia" is not exactly based in reality, but hard to tell.

 

[geni]

Holy crap, sorry Geni. Maybe nothing, but I just had a holy crap moment. How many terrorist fighters did the Syrians say launched this whole shell-the-soldiers, shell-the-city, slaughter families operation? around 800, right?


http://jcpa.org/article/alqaeda-jihadists-join-battle-syrian-regime/

Belhaj, of course, onetime military warlord of Tripoli, previously LIFG founder, negotiator of onetime merge with Al Qaeda, supposedly cancelled after Seif's reformation efforts that had them all rehabilitated and released, swearinf off terrorism - until the uprising last year. Now he's in Syria, allegedly, with a fair amount of weapons and a force the same basic size as the one cited here. Hmmm...

Oops, sorry, Iranian sources. Probably lying. Belhaj will be rebutting this - from Libya - any day now, right?

Hmm RPG rounds and heavy machine guns. The chechen tried that against Putin. Didn't work out too well. How much of a shock do you think they will get when they discover that syrians do actualy know how to fight a bit?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Bottom line is that armatures trying to interpret satellite images doesn't end well. Forbes McKenzie at least has the excuse that he has a company to drum up business for. "who now works for the commercial company that analysed the images" kinda cute don't you think? Suggests the company has employees.

LOL on the last. As an ameteur that's pretty good at making basic assessments that don't require specialization, just logic, I kind of contest the first sentence.

Do you know what happens to groups who lack heavy weapons try to hold fast against those who do and have a relaxed attitude towards collateral damage?

I would guess they tend to get killed. We saw a lot of them charred and dismembered across Libya. Not sure what your point is. Is that a threat that would apply if the regime and those it defends had less weapons?

Oh its generally accepted that the Alawites and Christians are on his side.

I wonder if the lynching and persecution of these groups as pro-Assad in rebel territory has anything to do with their dismay that all Syria should become "free?"

As I'm sure you are aware that has been a considerable devaluation in such terms. The Nigerian-Biafran War was a horrible humanitarian disaster. Current events aren't really on that scale.

Alright, I used the wrong phrase, Re-visiting what I said, to avoid weapon destruction and other-destruction, it would have been more sane to NOT slaughter with extreme cruelty fifty-plus women and children to create a crisis that didn't exist before, just ahead of Annan's visit and while the West still tries to blameAssad for everything. Moving things around afterwards is like... I'm bad with folksy metaphors.

I meant you can't meaningfuly predict what NATO are going to do.

I bet you could, with all the variables at hand, etc. Othwerwise, some broad facts can be known and good guesses made. People do it all the time.

Because they speak arabic and the english speaking journalists got shelled.

The what? I meant survivors, primarily people who (say they) saw the head-hammering and rapes and eye-gouging and throat-slitting, by people with "Alawite accents" who explained they were sent by Assad and came from loyalist villages nearby. But witnesses to the shelling too, if they could even say what direction it came from, etc. That's the main evidence that goes to show who did it, but no one's bringing them up yet.

 

[Childlike Empress]

As to the weaponry of possible other actors, I searched the thread for a certain post of mine:

Here's the video linked. It's titled "The Free Syrian Armytakes out Ba'ath party HQ in Homs, killing 60 "Assad thugs" and destroys 2 tanks." Pardalis, we are with your buddies the "peaceful protesters", the Baath Party HQ is across the street. Notice what's left of the tanks. Shows mostly shooting and no human casualties but maybe NFSW.

This is from February 27th. The video I linked has disappeared from YT but I found another copy. The day before:

 

[geni]

I wonder if the lynching and persecution of these groups as pro-Assad in rebel territory has anything to do with their dismay that all Syria should become "free?"

Nah. Goes back further than that. Fundimentaly it boils that that they can count. Non kurd Sunns make up about 65% of the population have spent the last few decades being oppressed by the Alawite minority. Its not unreasonable to expect that they seak a certian degree of recompense.

Alright, I used the wrong phrase, Re-visiting what I said, to avoid weapon destruction and other-destruction, it would have been more sane to NOT slaughter fifty-plus women and children to create a crisis that didn'texist before, just ahead of Annan's visit and while the West still tries to blameAssad for everything. Moving things around afterwards is like... I'm bad with folksy metaphors.

Thing is that the group currently ruling syria is well aware that it has no control over what NATO will or will not do. As a result focusing purely no domestic isues is a valid tactic.

I bet you could, with all the variables at hand, etc. Othwerwise, some broad facts can be known and good guesses made. People do it all the time.

Not in this case. There appears to be little political will for NATO to act particularity now the French elections have happened. However it would only take the wrong kind of Obama poll dip to change all that.

The what? I meant survivors, primarily people who (say they) saw the head-hammering and rapes and eye-gouging and throat-slitting, by people with "Alawite accents" who explained they were sent by Assad and came from loyalist villages nearby. But witnesses to the shelling too, if they could even say what direction it came from, etc. That's the main evidence that goes to show who did it, but no one's bringing them up yet.

They speak arabic not english.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Don't know if you followed it but in all humility I think that my months long coverage in this thread about Russia's and China's veto of UN resolutions, and taking a lot of flak as "Assad lover", kind of prepared the ground. It went from "conspiracy blogs" reporting about the foreign-financed and trained mercenaries/jihadis - while "everybody knew" that "Assad is killing his own people" - to Amnesty International condemning their activities and Clinton "worrysome" admitting Al-Qaeda involvement with overlapping goals to the US.

In the process I also heard the term "Shabiha" for the first time in some SPIEGEL horror stories, which they put out daily at the time. It appeared when it became undeniable that there are other forces than the Syrian army and "good rebels" active. I searched a bit and did not find too many sources for the term. IIRC - don't think I posted about it - it originated with a New York Times story from late last year. Could be that this "Assad thugs militia" is not exactly based in reality, but hard to tell.

Good work then, and I salute the bullets you took for the cause. ETA: Sorry I salute you, not the bullets.

I've been hearing around that the Shahiba only emerged as a story recently -the shadow army of Alawites capable of anything, like this. Suggestion they are a made-up ghost story. I don't know, myself. Hearing lots of things for the first time.

@ Geni: Do note the weapons you list are from the intercepted shipment they never got. We don't know how many other shipments got through or what was in them. Possibly zero, possibly ten, including tanks and artillery. How you smuggle those, dunno, but it's possible. That's why I get annoyed with people who say it had to be the regime since the rebels don't have this or that, as if anyone knows, or would tell if they did.

 

[geni]

As to the weaponry of possible other actors, I searched the thread for a certain post of mine:




This is from February 27th. The video I linked has disappeared from YT but I found another copy. The day before:

Those are APCs not tanks.

 

[Caustic Logic]

They speak arabic not english.

Okay, I'll start then. This kid sounds pretty convincing right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/houla-massacre-survivor-boy-syria

 

[geni]

@ Geni: Do note the weapons you list are from the intercepted shipment they never got. We don't know how many other shipments got through or what was in them. Possibly zero, possibly ten, including tanks and artillery. How you smuggle those, dunno, but it's possible. That's why I get annoyed with people who say it had to be the regime since the rebels don't have this or that, as if anyone knows, or would tell if they did.

The only known case of smuggling tanks in the 21st century involves the South Sudanese.

Thing is machine guns and RPGs are the kind of thing that you can travel light with and don't require much of a logistics train. Artillery does. As well as being little more than great big "shoot me here" sign in the hands of people who don't know what they are doing.

 

[geni]

Okay, I'll start then. This kid sounds pretty convincing right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/houla-massacre-survivor-boy-syria

Its hardly war, its not as if there is likely to be much tactical or strategic innovation so I really don't see why you are taking an interest. I mean if you are really that into gore I understand a few videos came out of chechnya as well as various more recent stuff. For the more historicaly minded I sugest the blue book covering german east africa.

The Syrian government are fighting an anti insurgency war in the conventional manner without any of this western PR stuff. So yeah sometimes they shoot up a house full of people. Sometimes they grab people off the street and introduce them to the contents of the black & decker catalogue. If this in any way surprises you you probably haven't been paying much attention to the last few thousand years of warfare.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Those are APCs not tanks.

There's another video in that thread, must be a page before or behind, where you can see them with tanks flying the "rebel" flag. Obviously captured/stolen.

 

[Childlike Empress]

After a week of silence, there's a statement of the russian foreign ministry about the massacre.

[...] The results of the investigation by the Syrian authorities, which were announced on 31 May this year, suggest that the crime was a well-planned action of the militants to disrupt the efforts of a political settlement of the Syrian crisis, to drive the situation in Syria to a new round of bloody violence. Moscow, which strongly and unequivocally condemns the violence against civilians, is awaiting the outcome of the investigation mandated by UN Security Council. Those who carried out and ordered this barbaric crime should incur the most severe punishment. [...] Tragedy in Houla showed the consequences of financial assistance and supplies of smuggled advanced weapons for the militants, the recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with all sorts of extremists. [...]

Although not mentioned, it's likely that they also base their conclusion on the report of an Abkhazian journalist team which was in the region and has interviewed witnesses independently of the Syrian authorities. Their original Russian report including videos of the interviews is here, and an English translation of a German translation is here.

This is all quite detailed, including names of some (the locals, presumably) of the terrorists involved. Bad chinese whispers translation slightly improved by me, from the German one:

During our trip to Al-Hula in the province of Homs, we have documented and filmed a dozen reports of witnesses of the attack on the Syrian city of Al-Hula (25th May 2012). The attack was carried out by a unit of armed fighters from Rastan, in which more than 700 gunmen were involved. They brought the city under their control and began with a cleansing action against loyalist (Pro-Assad) families, including elderly people, women and also children.

The bandits presented the dead to the UN and the “international community” as victims of the Syrian army, in order to increase the pressure against the “international community” to force a rapid adoption of a “suitable” resolution against Syria by the UN Security Council (UNSC), which they hope will just be “pushed through” because of the horrible massacre.

Today, the gunman fired virtually at everyone who comes in front of their muzzles. Only an hour before our arrival, they have shot at two armored vehicles of the UN observers, as the armored vehicles tried to reach a checkpoint of the Syrian army in Taldou; we have documented this on video.

Also at us, a machine-gun burst was fired, although it was clear to see that we are only a film crew, consisting of unarmed civilians. [...]

The work of a commission of inquiry of the Syrian Arab Army, and the documented testimonies of us, allow already to name some of the terrorists who committed these terrible crimes:

Radwan Said Farhan
Mashhur Massoud, Nickname: Tyurkavyi (a known terrorist)
Abdelkarim Al-Rahal
Akram Rashash Amer
Muhyiddin Mahmoud Shihab, Nickname: Muhyiddin Dscharban
A gang of terrorists from the Al-Iksha clan
Abdul Rasak Tlas
Yakha Al-Yousef
Said Fayez Al-Talha Iksh
Nidal Bakkur
A terrorist from the Al-Hallaka clan, Nickname: Al-Hassan
Ikram Al-Saleh
Al-Hallak Haysam

Below is the interview with our first witness, who will shed light on the chronology of this crime against humanity (by the so-called “Syrian rebels”): [...]

 

[geni]

Although not mentioned, it's likely that they also base their conclusion on the report of an Abkhazian journalist team

Where exactly did Abkhazia get the money to support a team of journalists in syria?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Where exactly did Abkhazia get the money to support a team of journalists in syria?

Pardon? Look at a map. You can drive there by car. Maybe 800 km.