HB, we've mentioned the Spiegel witnesses. That article tries hard to discredit the non-rebel witnesses, and makes up straw men about the Sayyid family converting to Shi'ism (only the Abdel Razaq family allegedly did). These accounts are being examined already (slowly so far)
The main problem in this case is the credibility of the government accounts.
Especially given that they have been caught
coercing the falsification of witness accounts in Aleppo
I didn't see anything like that in there. Can you point it out? Or did you mean to post a different link?
As well as an account of their falsifaction of witness accounts in this case:
One of the possible rebel-supplied liars says the government lies. The other side has its own similar claims:
I only saw the observers from far, they were surrounded by armed men who put on the Syrian Arab Army’s uniforms. A lot of people were there and saw all of that, they were of chosen families and they were calling “we want to bring the regime down” and everybody knows they’re the armed men’s relatives. The armed men got into the houses and told the people that they must leave because this is a military zone now. I didn’t go anywhere, but a lot fled the after that.
Yes, she spoke to SANA, not CNN. She's an alleged witness.
The sole basis of the story coming out of the Assad Regime side which claims that the Houla massacre was a rebel attack only comes from SANA, ANNA, or regime supplied sources that are directly involved with the side that is accused of having carried out this massacre.
The bolded isn't fully true. But CNN isn't accused of being involved in the violence. So are they bias free? What did they have to say to explain away the other witnesses? Anything? I just see the rebel-supplied witnesses being called "the witnesses" and their accounts taken as straight truth.
Why did the regime decide to kill so many little kids right before Kofi Annan's visit? Why again at Qubeir just hours before a big UN meeting, and why at Treimseh during such a meeting? Each time, it brings pressure against the government to halt its massacres, makes it harder for Russia. This fits better with rebel execution, whatever you might say about media sources.
There are other serious questions like that you'd be hard pressed to answer, despite how easy it is to dismiss "regime sources."
Sources that have already been caught falsifying information, and are accounted to have been falsifying information on this incident as well.
Falsification would be troubling, but no magic ticket to prove everything they say is a lie, or the claims under consideration are. But I still haven't seen that here, aside from what Col. Baqur said.
Similarly to being caught cheating at cards, it does not mean that you are going to automatically cheat again, but your reputation as an honest card player is diminished. If you have already been caught cheating multiple times, and all of the players have exactly contradicting information as to what the cards should be, than the seven kings in Assad's hand may not be real.
HB, is
Ali Al-Sayed a reliable witness to the massacre at Houla? (correct answer, no)
Have the rebels of Homs been caught lying
here? (correct answer, yes)
I've carried out two detailed investigations so far. That's how they've come out so far.
Which is the same for this case. You have collected a lot of information, and put a lot of time into making the website, but you can hardly call it two equal accounts of witness information when the accounts that are given are not performed on an equal basis. One set of accounts comes solely from a source already found to be providing falsified accounts, while the other comes from a wide range of witnesses given to a wide range of sources.
Rebel-supplied, activist-supplied, spoken to after the rebel takeover of the town, speaking to the believe-all-rebel stories mainstream media. The other side has spoken to SANA, ANNA, the nun, Jurgen Todenhoffer, and that's about it. Many of the witnesses, especially the direct ones who saw the killing up-lose, were killed. The others who saw part of it from a distance are scared ****less, are few, and don't give names. Is that more or less realistic than the rebel witnesses who escaped from within the massacre homes, report "Alawite accents," slogans, songs, etc., freely give "their" names and "their" stories as they roll with the rebels, adopted almost like their own family members now?
