Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[Virus]

You support fascism Caustic.

 

[angrysoba]

You support fascism Caustic.

 

[Caustic Logic]

You support fascism Caustic.

Classic timing. Thumbs-up for the giggle. You make the forum fun sometimes.

Oh, and the video, Angry. I don't even need to watch it for a second giggle. Good select.

Sorry, no more investigation of the massacre tonight/this AM.

 

[Virus]

Who else would post links about how much a tyrant's terrified population adores him?

Only one sort of person does that. Little fascist supporters. It's disgusting.

 

[JihadJane]

Who else would post links about how much a tyrant's terrified population adores him?

Only one sort of person does that. Little fascist supporters. It's disgusting.

So many vacuous ad homs - it's disgusting!

 

[Virus]

Sometimes little fascist supporters need to hear they're little fascist supporters.

Just in case they think they're fooling anyone.

 

[Mycroft]

Actually it's not clear if he was confused, annoyed, or terrified what his handlers would do if the one key part of his story wasn't believed by Martin Chulov.

So your theory here is he is being coached by the local resistance leader to lie about who murdered his family?

 

[geni]

You support fascism Caustic.

There are no groups involved in this conflict that can accurate be destcribed as fascist. Really the current setup in syria is litter different from what britian used to impose back in the imperial days.

 

[Childlike Empress]

So your theory here is he is being coached by the local resistance leader to lie about who murdered his family?

I just read the article again. Important paragraph:

The Guardian contacted the boy through a town elder who is a member of the Syrian Revolutionary Council and is now caring for him. We are unable to independently verify the account and have chosen not to name the boy for security reasons.

So this 15 minutes conversation was likely by phone or some kind of internet communication. The Guardian can not even verify if the local resistance leader is really in that town, if the kid is really a part of the victim family, etc. But as CL said, his story generally fits with the others (it was one of the first who talked about irregular forces with guns and knives, after in the beginning the army was accused to have murdered them with heavy weapons) except that some came with tanks and on this one crucial point of who those forces were. Which could be a translation manipulation by the "elder" or whatever. He also reports bald men with beards, btw.

ps: the video in the article also carries the obligatory "Unverified footage purports to show ..."

 

[Childlike Empress]

Ok, I did some dot connecting. It shudders me now but I think it's important.

First thing I did is take the forenames of the murdered relatives the kid mentioned, and search for them on the victims list I posted. I found the (unique) names of most of them, they belong to one family which is not one of the two main victim families.

This speaks for the authenticity of both the list and his testimony. He says that the assault happened in the night, Saturday around 3am (after the main atrocities on Friday).

The Abkhazian team has released another witness interview, this time with an alleged rebel who was with the attackers but turned himself in after he saw the slaughtering of children. He explains - on video with Google Earth - exactly how they proceeded, with descriptions of which family lives in which house etc, seems plausibly like a local. He also mentions the two main victim families Al-Sayed and Abdul Rasak, attacked apparently in the late afternoon/early evening of Friday. He says they were wealthy families and specifically targeted because they never donated to the insurgency.

The other witness in the interview I posted yesterday adds broader time frames. According to her, in the initial storming of the village they killed 25 army people at the checkpoint. A day later those corpses were presented to the UN observers as killed civilians, while the terrorists used their uniforms and vehicles to spread more mayhem in the area they now had under total control, posing as the army.

A: When the UN Observers came, the armed men gathered the bodies in front of the observers and claimed that they’re civilians killed by the Syrian Arab Army, I heard that personally from them when they said it to the observers and they claimed that they found the bodies inside the houses.

On the second day we heard them talking to each other on walkie talkies that some of the armed men should wear the Syrian Arabi Army’s uniform before the observers arrive so that they claim they’ve defected from the army and joined the armed men, and the others should dress like civilians and come to with us to the mosque, where the bodies and the observers are.

They burned some farms and houses to accuse the army of shelling the area in front of the observers.

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.

This would explain why the "Guardian-Kid" thought that they were attacked by bald, bearded men with military vehicles from the army early Saturday morning.

 

[Toontown]

The Russians wouldn't likely be changing their tune from "both to blame" to "support for the opposition to blame" unless they had reason to believe the world at large will be forced to acknowledge this as a rebel massacre.

If they have reason to believe that, what are they saving it up for?

But this remaining pinned clearly on Assad and his people, unlikely. It was too far a reach, I'm happy to report that I now suspect. There will also be some delightfully awkward moments.

Well, we just want you to be happy, Caustic. If old dead-eyes staying in power makes you happy, then your chances for happiness are better than average.

If it had been the regime, the evidence would be there....

Sure. Evidence always exists. The problem is finding the evidence before it is cleaned up. Whoever did it will try to clean up the evidence. And probably succeed.

and they would be all-but proven to have been that monumentally stupid/insane plus evil.

I was pretty sure they were monumentally stupid/insane plus evil when they murdered the president of Lebanon and tried to build a clandestine nuclear plant right under Israel's nose. But perhaps your standards are lower.

Their own people really would rebel en masse, UNSC approval for bombing, done on the cheap, over in a year. But just watch - that won't be happening.

Well, there you are, on record. The regime survives, there is no intervention. A safe gamble in your quest for predictive credibility. If it comes to pass as you predict, and it probably will, you'll always be able to trot it out in the future when anyone doubts your word.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Sometimes little fascist supporters need to hear they're little fascist supporters.

Just in case they think they're fooling anyone.

Oh you caught me good. Did not notice the hand up my bum until you pointed it out and now I slink off all shame-faced.

Or not.

Yeah, not. Something about the facts and the 3-D world people actually live in.

 

[Caustic Logic]

So your theory here is he is being coached by the local resistance leader to lie about who murdered his family?

And/or about his family being killed. Little or nothing of it can be verified, as C.E. points out with more specificity. and it's all a bit convenient. Do note what happened - he got upset only when the political spin of his family's brutal murder was questioned. That was his core and only mission, I suspect.

If they have reason to believe that, what are they saving it up for?

They seem to starting to spend now. They were saving for a little more info to see which way to go. Here's the way:

Alexei Pushkov, chair of the international affairs committee of the Russian parliament, the Duma, was more explicit: “We have very strong doubts that those people who were shot at point blank [range] and were stabbed, that this was the action of forces loyal to President Assad,” he told the BBC.

“The shelling was probably the responsibility of the troops of Mr Assad, but the stabbing and point blank firing was definitely from the other side.”

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2012/06/03/syria-the-dangers-of-one-sided-reporting/
The up-close stuff seems to have been more than shooting and stabbing, BTW. So here, if the logic pops up that both phases were probably by the same side, which way would itgo? Regime or opposition?

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.

http://www.rusemb.org.uk/foreignpolicy/146

Well, we just want you to be happy, Caustic. If old dead-eyes staying in power makes you happy, then your chances for happiness are better than average.

Terrorist monsters like that NOT being given the keys to power by expensive and deadly aerial bombardment makes me far less sad than the alternative many have been pushing for. Sorry you seem to be annoyed by it.

Sure. Evidence always exists. The problem is finding the evidence before it is cleaned up. Whoever did it will try to clean up the evidence. And probably succeed.

The "witnesses" are the mop, activists the mop water, Forbes McKenzie the dustpan, BBC the dust bin...

I was pretty sure they were monumentally stupid/insane plus evil when they murdered the president of Lebanon and tried to build a clandestine nuclear plant right under Israel's nose. But perhaps your standards are lower.

Hariri? Likely framed for that too. But it's another story and I won't argue it here.

Well, there you are, on record. The regime survives, there is no intervention. A safe gamble in your quest for predictive credibility. If it comes to pass as you predict, and it probably will, you'll always be able to trot it out in the future when anyone doubts your word.

I'm still crossing my fingers that I'm not proven horribly wrong.

You've never lived through a modern regime change humanitarian war, have you? I haven't, but I don't imagine it's fun.

And besides, no way is Syria in the clear, safe and secure. This will linger, and cause problems of unknown severity, even without full-on smashing of the state.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Ok, I did some dot connecting. It shudders me now but I think it's important.

First thing I did is take the forenames of the murdered relatives the kid mentioned, and search for them on the victims list I posted. I found the (unique) names of most of them, they belong to one family which is not one of the two main victim families.

This speaks for the authenticity of both the list and his testimony. He says that the assault happened in the night, Saturday around 3am (after the main atrocities on Friday).

So the kid might be legit? Or atleast acting on legit info connecting toone family, and not one of the Assad loyalist ones that took the brunt of it? Hm. Better than average fakery or maybe he's telling the truth, as far-fetched as the story is.

The Abkhazian team has released another witness interview, this time with an alleged rebel who was with the attackers but turned himself in after he saw the slaughtering of children. He explains - on video with Google Earth - exactly how they proceeded, with descriptions of which family lives in which house etc, seems plausibly like a local. He also mentions the two main victim families Al-Sayed and Abdul Rasak, attacked apparently in the late afternoon/early evening of Friday. He says they were wealthy families and specifically targeted because they never donated to the insurgency.

The other witness in the interview I posted yesterday adds broader time frames. According to her, in the initial storming of the village they killed 25 army people at the checkpoint. A day later those corpses were presented to the UN observers as killed civilians, while the terrorists used their uniforms and vehicles to spread more mayhem in the area they now had under total control, posing as the army.


This would explain why the "Guardian-Kid" thought that they were attacked by bald, bearded men with military vehicles from the army early Saturday morning.

Gulp. Could this kind of thing be how they got ahold of tanks and heavy weapons prior to the 25th? And uniforms, boy how can you explain that? They don't just grow on trees...

I'm still unable to catch up with you ATM, Empress. I'll follow along, vaguely at least, until I can get more time cleared.

 

[Virus]

I'm sure those regime-controlled propaganda outlets are totally reliable.

How duped can little fascist supporters get?

 

[geni]

I'm mildly curious why you keep mentioning war porn here.




That makes a certain sense. They call themselves Akhazian, a descriptor. Do we know they claimed to have travelled on Abkhazian passports? Or what exactly is the point? Aside from using the suggested Russian ID and/or funding to cast doubt like so:

I missed one the site is registered to Marat Musin one of the journalists. If you consult the whois he was aparently living in moscow when the site was registered.

Implication is this possibly Russian-sponsored journalism is essentially a lie.

Evidence?
(rhetorical question, really - I'd rather drop line this as soon as we can all agree to)

Well truthful russian journalists have shown an unfortunate tendency to get beaten up. Aditionaly if you consult the site's about page we find the google translation is:

"The aim of the project ANNA

is the true information, analysis and prediction of events that are directly related to the problem of Russia's national security and its strategic allies in the current military-political context of the global processing"

In short they are russian and can be assumed to be russian friendly to the point where they are going to make sure their reports conicide with russian state interests. Its also consistent with their funding being from the russian goverment.

 

[geni]

It's anyway only based on geni's strange assumption that Abkhazians don't have money to travel. There's a nice international airport just around the corner in Sochi, or you could take the ship through the Bosphorus, but who could afford THAT?

Look we've established that you know nothing of the costs of having foreign correspondents particulary when the state is as un-media friendly as syria so can you drop the subject until you've at least read the sources I listed unless you have some alturnative suggestions.

 

[Virus]

Came across a couple of interesting articles by a guy who went to the refugee camps on the Turkish border.

Part 1

Part 2

Just thought I'd post them because the bit about lazy people swallowing what SANA, the regime-controlled media bureau, feeds them reminded me of this thread.

 

[Loss Leader]

Several posts have been moved to AAH for being off-topic. Please remember that it is off-topic to discuss a member's reason for posting in the thread or holding a particular belief. Thanks.

Posted By: Loss Leader

 

[Virus]

Hariri? Likely framed for that too. But it's another story and I won't argue it here.

Whoa. What's this? Who framed him?