Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[trustbutverify]

Let's see: witless insults, a smattering of straw and a healthy dose of miscomprehension. Well, at least you're consistent.

Bobert the clever one: WSWS and SANA both report something, you dismiss the something as clearly untrue since unreliable commie/tyrant sources made the claims. So is VoA also lying that these videos and claims exist, or was your self-amused show of derision totally pointless?

I never dismissed this event as "clearly untrue", Inspector Clouseau. This mass killing was well covered by many actual news sources, and I've never questioned it's occurrence. Also, I have nothing against publications and websites with a socialist or communist orientation, as long as they maintain some semblance of journalistic integrity. My derision was directed at the choice of using the mouthpiece of a despicable dictator- along with a pathetic website doing a wonderful impression of Pravda on meth- as "news sources".

I'm sure Stormfront.com prints an occasional fact or two. Maybe even gets it's punctuation right. I like to think most JREF members would choose other sources for quotation. Because Stormfront, besides being a vile, neo-Nazi site, has no credibility.

Can you place Syria on a map, even?

Since I've lived about 20% of my life in Israel- and have traveled through a fair part of the ME, I'd say yes, I can place Syria on a map.

Tell me, is this the type of razor sharp analysis you used when convincing yourself that 9/11 was an inside job?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Oh look, the dog's still laughing. Wonder what's so funny?

The UNSMIS report is available now, at least to Alex Thomson. I couldn't locate the actual document yet, but it should be available sooner or later on their website. He just published an article taking a first view - blame is laid at both sides for atrocities in the general picture, and the Al-Houla mystery seems to remain unsolved.

[...] In the end the report plays out two scenarios for the massacre, both of which it says are possible. [...]

The UN report says anti-government civilians and fighters from al-Houla were first on the scene of the massacre and took care of body retrieval and burial. The report leads to two possible reasons for this: they were there anyhow because they’d committed the atrocity. Or they’d heard the shots and screams, knew what had gone on and naturally entered the location at the first safe opportunity. [...]

Yeah, we'd figured that much. Can't wait to take a closer look at the report.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Let's see: witless insults, a smattering of straw and a healthy dose of miscomprehension. Well, at least you're consistent.

Wrong there but I can move on.

I never dismissed this event as "clearly untrue"

Then what was the point pointing out the source? That's often a way to dismiss it as irrelevant, propaganda, untrue, etc. The point of posting it was hey, here's this event. Your response was basically "says a mouthpiece of a despicable dictator- along with a pathetic website doing a wonderful impression of Pravda on meth."

Alright, so the event happened. Details, parallels, nah, no need to engage tyrant propaganda, haha, click. You don't recognize this process happening?

I'm sure Stormfront.com prints an occasional fact or two.

I hear someone counted 4, five, depending. WSWS and SANA printed a couple. They're under discussion.

Since I've lived about 20% of my life in Israel- and have traveled through a fair part of the ME, I'd say yes, I can place Syria on a map.

Alright, then. Just checking. You seem uninterested in talking about it much, aside from laughing at sources that do talk about it, that you find funny.

Is this the type of razor sharp analysis you used when convincing yourself that 9/11 was an inside job?

No such thing. At least we're in no danger of cutting each other up here.

I do have a hunch Houla was a false flag job.

 

[Caustic Logic]

The UNSMIS report is available now, at least to Alex Thomson. I couldn't locate the actual document yet, but it should be availiabe sooner or later on their website. He just published an article taking a first view - blame is laid at both sides for atrocities in the general picture, and the Al-Houla mystery seems to remain unsolved.


Yeah, we'd figured that much. Can't wait to take a closer look at the report.

Hmm, yes, this will be a heavy turn in things to think about, new information some people will have to find whole new ways to ignore. Will see what the not-so-late Alextomo says, and that's about it for a several hours.

ETA: He may have the date wrong - says 35 May at the moment. Budget cuts.

ETA 2: left a comment if it's allowed. Something like "wow," and "thank your driver again for us all." This is pretty amazing, as he makes it sound. These were the on-the-ground professionals, who surely heard all the rebel witnesses and all their details and allegations, heard the other side, considered the pressure of world opinion swinging 98% one way, then stepped out still refusing to dismiss the loony claim of the tyrant regime.

In the end the report plays out two scenarios for the massacre, both of which it says are possible.

The first is that after a prolonged shelling barrage after Friday prayers that day, several hundred anti-government militia entered al-Houla probably from the east, from areas such as al-Rastan. They then used the shelling barrage in one area as cover to leave that area and attack and kill several families living to the south and southwest of the town.

The motive for that would be that these families were perceived as being pro-government and the militias wanted to escalate the conflict by blaming the atrocity on government forces.

The second scenario is ...

The only one considered sane in previous public discourse. Scoffers, take note.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Some UN reports are dropping today. The buzz right now is that Pinheiro (sp?) identifies pro-gov't militias as the 'most likely' perpetrators of the Houla massacre, but notes other parties may have been responsible.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Trying to navigate un.org is a nightmare, the absolute SNAFU. Every second click brings you to a totally differently designed new subsite, all interwoven with sadistic buerocratic lust. What a mess.

But I found what I was looking for on the Human Rights Council subsite after some valiantly random jump performance.

The statement the Capt'n is referring to is here:

[...] Thus, while the Commission could not rule out the possibility of anti-Government fighters being responsible for the killing, it was considered unlikely. Similarly, we could not rule out the possibility of the involvement of foreign groups of unknown affiliation.

Inconsistencies in the available evidence hindered our ability to determine the identity of the perpetrators at this time. Nevertheless, we consider that forces loyal to the Government may have been responsible for many of the deaths. We will continue our investigation until the end of our mandate. [...]

The actual report, which is as indicated by the statement not final, but a mere "oral update", is here (1MB PDF).

Locating it exhausted me too much to take a look now, but it seems to go into some detail.

 

[bigjelmapro]

...
Do you think we're all stupid?

Come back and celebrate sometime after engaging the information, at least.

And you can join CE with making baseless claims and running with them in threads to come. Enjoy.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Trying to navigate un.org is a nightmare, the absolute SNAFU. Every second click brings you to a totally differently designed new subsite, all interwoven with sadistic buerocratic lust. What a mess.

But I found what I was looking for on the Human Rights Council subsite after some valiantly random jump performance.

The statement the Capt'n is referring to is here:

The actual report, which is as indicated by the statement not final, but a mere "oral update", is here (1MB PDF).

Locating it exhausted me too much to take a look now, but it seems to go into some detail.

I was hoping you'd have it analyzed here to save me some time. I'm a bit tired lately and this gives me the groans thinking about it. I suppose that would be replaced with excitement once I start reading (later). Details are good. Wonder why so few forum members have the same feeling?

And you can join CE with making baseless claims and running with them in threads to come. Enjoy.

No thanks, the formula we've been using is fine. It involves some speculation and original thought, sure, but never unfounded. Gotta stay connected to reported alleged facts, though clearly one set has to be untrue.

You can feel free to continue saying and knowing nothing relevant, and doing it smugly. It's a forum tradition when accepted truths are challenged.

 

[bigjelmapro]

And skimming over posts is of no issue? Right. Rinse repeat mate.

 

[Caustic Logic]

UN report fallout? Syrian loyalist TV station blown up near Damascus, following execution of seven workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/w...ernment-television-station-attacked.html?_r=1

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Gunmen stormed a pro-government television station in a suburb near Damascus early Wednesday, killed seven employees and destroyed its studios with explosives, Syrian officials said, calling the assault a brazen example of atrocities committed by the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

The attack coincided with a new United Nations report on human rights violations in Syria that mostly castigated the Syrian government.

Rebels disputed the official account of the attack, saying the killers were defectors from Syria’s elite Republican Guard, considered the most loyal core of defenders of Mr. Assad’s inner circle. If the rebel version is confirmed, the attack would constitute a significant breach of security for those close to Mr. Assad, who said on Tuesday that Syria was now in “a state of war.”

Read it one way, it's not existing "armed opposition," but brand-new armed opposition, from Assad's most loyal people, making it sorta, effectively, an intra-regime crime, and also conveniently proving how fragmented they are. These sudden defectors decided the lying regime needs its voice box (loyal media) torn out. That's according to "Col. Malik Kurdi, a spokesman in Turkey for a rebel commander, Riad al-Assad of the Free Syrian Army." The regime blame on existing "terrorists" is apparently another thin lie, and between that, mention of a report that "mostly castigated" the lying regime.

Read the other way, the report that actually gives some credence to the "government version" of Houla, has the existing terrorists infuriated with SANA's and allies' alleged lies. Same day, they kill seven at a TV station and blow it up.

Takers for each version?

Amnesty condemns it so:

Media workers killed during an attack on a pro-government TV station in Syria should not have been targeted, Amnesty International said today.

The organization said that Ikhbariya TV, like other media facilities, is a civilian object, and those working in the media are civilians and must be protected from attack.

“Even a media organization engaged in propaganda is still a civilian object, so it and those working for it must never be deliberately targeted,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.

“All parties should condemn this attack and make clear to those under their command that attacks of this nature and other such violations will not be tolerated.”

According to the state news agency SANA, three journalists and four security workers were killed in the attack which took place early on Wednesday morning when armed men stormed the station’s headquarters in the town of Drousha, about 15 miles south of Damascus.

Several representatives of the opposition have claimed publicly that members of armed opposition groups or defectors carried out the attack.

No, see, they misunderstood the claim. The NYT got it right as rebels "disputing the official account," by citing brand-new previously unknown defectors. The rebels hadn't yet had a chance to familiarize them with international standards they adhere to, and they had just defected, so basically, it was a regime crime. Why AI fails to understand this, I do not know.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Not for a lack of new material, I'd like to add another note to the Houla deception pile. A witness account I just found (making 22 for the rebel version, most of them miracle survivors). "Fatima"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDYOBCf_N9A&feature=relmfu
A video posted May 29. It shows a woman laying on a couch, intravenous drip in her right hand, but no obvious injury. According to the English captioning, she reports the army was firing on the city in the afternoon, so she took the kids to a neighbor’s house. Her husband had just left to check on their sheep, and she sent her uncle to retrieve him. Her uncle "called us and told us that the soldiers are surrounding my husband and shooting the cattle (sheep). Then some of the neighborhood young guys went to help my husband from the soldiers. But my uncle never came back.”

She stayed hidden as the shooting continued, saw soldiers break intio her vacant house, cursing, enter other homes, shooting and leaving. She called one house, and the occupants were alive. The soldiers were just "looking for things." She describes the plaunderers as “Assad’s army soldiers, and they were Alawites, and I saw their faces.”

“After a while, they came to us and started stabbing us and kicking our faces and bodies. They kicked my young kids and put us inside a room, then he fired at us directly using AK47. Then another was finishing those who are not dead. Then he killed everyone in the house. There were around 40 to 50 kids and women inside the house. Then I pretended I was dead and crawled out of my neighbor’s house to my house.”

She says she was shot, apparently in the abdomen (“a burning rod inside my stomach”) and her children all killed (three boys aged 6, 4, and 18 months, and a 5-year-old girl). She receivied calls from a distant cousin and a neighbor, she told all the story: “everyone is killed around me.” Her husband turned up later and asked “what happened to you, Fatima?” He had been off leaving his cattle in a a nearby town, he explained, and reported back they had found more bodies there, including kids kidnapped from Houla.

Hearing this, she remembered the soldiers “were cursing a lot at us, calling us animals. I remembered one soldier saying to another “let’s take this kid with us. … I think they took my son. Please, if he is alive, I want him back. My son is only 4 years old. It really burns my heart. Please God, take revenge for me.”

Any takers on helping this lady get her revenge? Any suspects rising to the top? Dramatic sequel potential?

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Not for a lack of new material, I'd like to add another note to the Houla deception pile. A witness account I just found (making 22 for the rebel version, most of them miracle survivors).

22 survivors interviewed? Do you have a link to each one?

 

[Caustic Logic]

22 survivors interviewed? Do you have a link to each one?

One big link for all, but it's not ready to publicize yet. I think you have the link, however. The biggest batch are from the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18240460
22 includes all entries, some activists, and not clearly witnesses. But most are escapees, again most of them unharmed or possibly fake injuries. A few seem real, who knows...

A lot of AbdulRazaks were the only survivors from the house where up to 50 were killed.

This lady though... she implicates her husband in that bizarre story, doesn'tshe? And Ali implicates his uncle ...lots of betrayal and psychodrama here.

 

[Childlike Empress]

The UN report on Ali:

There is an alleged survivor, a young boy, and the CoI was able to interview him via skype. The CoI also considered video evidence posted by anti-Government groups of the boy being interviewed by others. In both interviews he blamed the killings on Shabbiha and soldiers of the Syrian army. In one interview the survivor stated that the perpetrators arrived together in tanks. The CoI took note of the age of the boy and duly considered his suggestibility.

The report (six pages of the pdf) contains some useful information, but reading this thread would have helped them answer some pressing questions...

 

[Caustic Logic]

The UN report on Ali:




The report (six pages of the pdf) contains some useful information, but reading this thread would have helped them answer some pressing questions...

I have had a look, and it's got plenty of valuable thoughts mixed into the muck of pro-rebel readings and Western habit. UN reports often have a bit of that, but this one is really surprisingly close to half and half.

I hear the Syrians walked out on the report's presentation, I guess where it said it was possible they did it. That's fair, considering, but I think their hopes were just too high. This is pretty good and they should run with what they have.

The media's doing the opposite. Aside from Thomson, everyone's treating the report in a really vague way - little or no mention the rebels really, really, might have done the close-up killing of loyalist families (and possibly even whatever shelling there was), emphasis on how the government "may" have done "many" of the killings. But that's way different from what we've all been saying, so they bury it in an article mentioning the day's new blamed-on-the-government violence and it seems arguably like a nice fit.

Here's another great new story of the regime's insane efforts to hide the truth:
Syria: Detained medics tortured and killed amid Aleppo crackdown
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/syria-detained-medics-killed-brutal-bid-silence-dissent-2012-06-26

The three students’ burned bodies were found in the early hours of 24 June in a burned-out car in the Neirab area of Aleppo’s north-eastern outskirts.
Medical personnel who saw the bodies at the morgue told Amnesty International that Basel Aslan had a gunshot wound to the head and his hands were tied behind his back.
One leg and one arm were broken, several teeth missing and the flesh was missing from his lower legs, leaving the bone exposed. Some of his fingernails had been removed.
The bodies of the others were more heavily burned and also bore other wounds.
Amnesty International has seen images of the corpses that back up these descriptions.
The students’ identity cards and university cards were found intact alongside their bodies, indicating that they had been left there after the bodies were burned.

A fourth, charred corpse found with the men has yet to be identified.

Provocative, extreme Islamo-nihilist technique and its implications: ignored. Reported fact: "President Bashar al-Assad’s
government has intensified its hunt for the wounded and for those who provide life-saving emergency treatment to them."

And no slight attempt to cover their tracks? The proof the regime did it is that they were treating injured protesters (the ones the gov. calls false-flagging terrorists). After treating injured terrorists protesters, following their latest clashes, protests, "They had been detained by Air Force Intelligence since their arrest in the city on 17 June." No citation given, but presumably on the word of terrorist supporters activists. Mo way were they released and then punished extra by people who saw the chance to blame the military.

Besides, bad guys kill the good guys, so that means the terrorist regime, not protesters, right? Another horror story, another shot in the foot, suicidal maniacs!

 

[Caustic Logic]

Acknowledged, that last one isn't the clearest example, and I'm just glad it didn't start another draining side-argument.

On the Houla deception, I just correlated what our star witness Ali says between the two sources about his family. Is theis one impressionable little tyke more or less consistent than the official version where numerous witnesses agree the family of the new parliament speaker was killed? His name, apparently Abdelmuti Al-Mashlab Al-Sayed in full, appears nowhere in Little Ali's account.

citing
(g) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/28/houla-massacre-survivor-boy-syria
and
(v) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9KnjNxU8nI

Ali gives his killed father as Ali Alsayed (v) and to the Guardian as either Aref of Shawki: "They said they wanted Aref and Shawki, my father and my brother." (g) To the Guardian he says the soldiers "asked about my uncle, Abu Haidar. They also knew his name." There he cites five deaths in his household; "they shot my father and uncle. And then they found Aref, my oldest brother, near the door. They shot him dead too." (g) In the video interview, he names a brother Shaoqi (Shawki), his father Ali, and two uncles: Oqba, and Aref, unclear if one or both were arrested. (vid)

Despite the amazing confusion over his immediate family and their names, Ali's two accounts consistently suggest another - unnamed - uncle was complicit in the killings. To the Guardian, he reported running to his uncle's house for safety. The soldiers who had attacked his home then arrived and, unseen, he overheard them "asking his uncle if he knew who lived in the house that they just rampaged through." (g) In the video, he says his uncle(s) and brother were taken away, rather than killed there. He said "the next day I saw them dead on the government TV channel. My uncle came on saying that armed gangs killed his children.” (v)

Feel free to double-check. The name of this scheming uncle is unspecified in both cases.But I think it's supposed to Mashlab, who presumably did make such a TV appearance.

Takers for the kid's version?

ETA: Remember, he's the star witness for the version the media has presented as unassaileble fact, that isn't "another blatant lie" according to Suasan "Viagra" Rice, and is believed in knee-jerk fashion by a majority of forum members, I'd wager.

 

[Caustic Logic]

No takers for the kid's version?

Nah. Plenty have believed him and will continue to.

But no one here willing to publicly defend his credibility or say anything in its defense?

 

[Moss]

From the same Guardian article:

"They came in armoured vehicles and there were some tanks," said the boy. "They shot five bullets through the door of our house. They said they wanted Aref and Shawki, my father and my brother. They then asked about my uncle, Abu Haidar. They also knew his name."

On the way out of the house, the boy said the gunmen found the three men they had been looking for. They killed them all. "They shot my father and uncle. And then they found Aref, my oldest brother, near the door. They shot him dead too."

Now that makes me wonder who exactly was confusing things, the boy, the translator or the journalist.
Not sure if I would trust him from the video, it's a bit specific about what was taken as loot. Though how people grieve and what people notice in such situations is not exactly a good predictor of their veracity.

 

[DC]

doesn't look trustworthy the interview with the kid.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate thoughts from outside my head or those few known to agree. I guess that wasn't enough material either to judge him on -it's that plus other things, some of which I covered earlier.

Not sure if I would trust him from the video, it's a bit specific about what was taken as loot.

In the video, he also specifies a vacuum cleaner was stolen. The Guardian passes on the rest, three TVs and a computer.

The confusion by Chulov or a translator is possible there, but sounds like a complex cluster of error that would be hard to explain. In the video he separately names Shaoqi as his brother, Aref as an uncle, and Ali as his dad. That has original audio an Arabic speaker could check, but there's the possibility. Bad memory? Bad coaching? I don't know, but it's not good.

The 11 guys in a tank could mean an APC or whatnot. It was firing its gun still, whatever kind, he says in the video. They're described as Shabiha who spoke with "an Alawite accent" (is there one? maybe). In reality, IMO he would have seen people with Syrian Sunni accents(??) and Libyan accents, and he would have died.

The miracle escape is problematic. One soldier shot at him, missing, the bullet grazing the back of his right hand he says, showing the camera the invisible scratch. With that plus some blood smeared on his face, they thought he was dead and he was able to run to his uncle's house where he was able to solve the mystery of his evil uncle's TV statement.

And finally, his main part of the story in two parts-the guilty and the response. As Chulov notes:

Throughout a 15-minute conversation, the boy remained calm and detached until he was pressed on how he knew the gunmen were pro-regime militia men, known as al-Shabiha. ... "Why are you asking me who they were? I know who they were. We all know it. They were the regime army and people who fight with them. That is true."

In the video he handles that part more calmly and gets to the real meat with his plea at 3:09, deep breath then launching in with no thought to something he's apparently practiced more carefully than his family's names:

I demand that the international community stop the killing in Syria & in Houla … We’re being killed in our homes. The international community is sitting, just talking and not doing anything. The people must fight for us, do what they say, and protect us.”

Bombs away, not skepticism, was supposed to be the response. Many are still working on it, and the diplomats are still kicked out over this particular massacre.

But if the star witness isn't reliable, is his basic story still coincidentally true? Or ... did someone else hack down about 50 little kids and 58 others? And who did the repeat at at Mazraat Al-Qubeir, and all the other smaller kidnap-torture-killings of Syrians blamed on the regime? What will the war do to stop them?