Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[Caustic Logic]

If course there is incentive. States that rule by terror have an incentive to terrorize.

That is deep, man. I can tell you've done your research here.

I Ratant: Thanks for the useful insights. I didn't see any such useful street views anywhere near Houla. There are plenty of area photos, though. Would be good for research I should really suggest someone else should do.

I'm not sure I follow. Why would it have been impossible for some of the people to be killed in an artillery bombardment, and others to have been killed by other parties in another incident involving knives and small arms?

Well it's possible, sure. That's what the Russians do seem to be alleging. Maybe the gov. shelled, and pretty quick the other side decided to go make their shelling look way worse, to shock people better.

After all, those who crush their governments by horrifying powerful and biassed outsiders have an incentive to horrify outsiders like that.

But the balance of logic says to me if an area of a town (loyalist homes) is hit from afar and then also attacked up close, usually you don't have two enemies each hitting it for their own reasons.

I agree generally with the 'motives' analysis - the Syrian government would have little rational incentive to do something like this, knowing how likely it would be that this would lead to increased calls for humanitarian intervention in the West, unless they had some back channel promises from Russia to the tune of 'we will support you militarily no matter what'. I don't know that Russia would give these kinds of assurances. That's not to say syrian gov't forces definitely weren't responsible, and it's not to say that it was or wasn't the shabiha either.

Of course. Good call.

RE abkhazians using Russian passports- this is true, few other countries recognize Abkhazia. But I'm not sure how it demonstrates that the abkhazian reporters in question are necessarily Russian stooges.

Or even if they are that they're lying stooges. Truth too can be propaganda. And no one could show anything this ANNA team did even suggesting lies, bias, or anything that the BBC et al. haven't been doing at least as bad.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Leaving bodies behind is unusual in the normal course of things. Chucking them out of a helicopter into the ocean or burying them in the deserts somewhere is more common. Opposition should disappear.

You see it sometimes as a tactic in a full blown guerrilla war where you dump the tortured body of the last guerrilla you caught in front of the parents house as a scare tactic but even that's not common.

Funny thing about this point... Anyone recall all the dead executed black guys left rotting around the Abu Salim area of tripoli as the rebels rolled through? I wonder if those fleeing Gaddafi loyalists found their way to Syria. Maybe that's why Belhaj et al. went there, to chase them down and save the Syrian people from the same horrors.

Regime forces have been careful to avoid the high casualty numbers that could lead to an intervention based on humanitarian grounds.

They might also say his forces have been avoiding the brutal killing of children, raping of women, slitting throats and so on that they just did, for that same dubious logic. As if they careabout the opinions of peoplewho serially bomb countries into submission over rumors! Screw 'em! Thumb your nose!

Someone needs to set Stratfor straight. Virus, go tell' em - the bad guys do the bad guy things. Because of fascism. Duh!

The lack of journalistic freedom and/or ethics in Syria and it's foreign support structure results in the complete uselessness of this thread, wherein no one knows Diddly.

You have at least half a point, but ...a quarter of one maybe... if it was backwards...

(to everyone now) It's true I for one don't know much of any detail here yet. No one's discussing the details really, and my time is already booked. C.E.'s been discussing the witnesses, even finding credibility clues for and against the conflicting witnesses on both sides. One side are pro-Assad and say so were the victims, attacked by terrorists. They seem to be talking mostly to Russian media, so they must be lying, some would guess. Others are funneled to the Western media by the opposition, and say the attack was against protesters. Some would guess this must be true because they trust their own media, despite much evidence.

Anyway, by all means do ignore the only direct supposed evidence of what happened - what people say and, if possible (anyone) any photo or video evidence of this shelling or of fighters driving in. None of it caught until after? I don't know. And keeping it SFW, what can we say from the evidence of the aftermath? Anything useful in deciding who's responsible?

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Well it's possible, sure. That's what the Russians do seem to be alleging. Maybe the gov. shelled, and pretty quick the other side decided to go make their shelling look way worse, to shock people better.

Do we know for sure the people killed by artillery were from the same houses as the people killed up close? In terms of the stuff coming out of Syria right now I would have to say the UN reports are likely among the more un-biased, and they say the shelling was likely gov't but can't say for sure who did the up-close stuff. I think the UN observers would likely have some understanding of the capabilities of the rebels and the Syrian army, though to be sure the capabilities of the former have definitely been increasing recently (to wit, numerous reports of burned out Syrian army tanks and APCs).

I also read somewhere an allegation that rebels took victims from a number of firefights in Houla and presented these as having all been victims of the same incident. Not completely crazy if you think the rebels (or some rebellious elements- it seems obvious that there are various groups in action) are trying to play a propaganda game here.

The Syrian gov't says one of the families targeted was the Mashlab family. Mashlab was apparently someone who was recently 'elected' to the Syrian parliament i.e. 'pro-gov't'. I haven't seen any interviews with him though, and you'd think the gov't would provide this evidence to support their claim.

Semi-related to this thread: I've also read some reports (mostly on catholic/christian websites) about 'ethnic cleansing' by rebel elements in Homs etc. Wonder about that too.

If anyone knows what's really going on in Syria, it's probably Google.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

They might also say his forces have been avoiding the raping of women, scooping out of eyes, and soon that they just did, for that same dubiouslogic. Someone needs to set Stratfor straight. Virus,go tell' em - the bad guys do the bad guy things. Because of fascism. Duh!

heh

This is what appears to be the full text of the report (from a while ago)
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=284880901563688

Some sources have this (I think incorrectly) described as a leaked document. From the link at the top of the facebook page it seems rather that it's a members-only Stratfor report that someone copypasta'd.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Interesting side-trivia:

BestGore.com, now infamous (in the True North Strong and Free) for posting the apparent hacking/dismemberment/body-parts-sent-to-harper-and-schools video, actually has a lot of...well...analysis of videos purporting to show Syrian gov't abuses. No strangers to grisly videos, they have picked apart some of these... for example, a video of a chainsaw beheading that was attributed to the Syrian gov't was shown to actually be the work of the Mexican cartels (referenced above).

Now this is not to say that I wouldn't bet dollars to doughnuts that the Assad regime has tortured people and summarily executed them in putting down this uprising, no doubt. And has probably committed other war crimes too, such as responding with disproportionate force.

But coupled with the Stratfor analysis too (and they're pretty reputable) ... I don't trust the rebel accounts. And pretty much everything we're seeing reported in teh regular news is rebel accounts of events.

 

[squealpiggy]

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?

It looks like several vehicles headed to the trees for cover and split up to broaden the field of fire. That's exactly what I would suspect a convoy of artillery guns to do in preparation for an attack.

You raise interesting concerns which I don't find altogether implausible, then get sidetracked into the minutia of "analyse these photographs until they agree with what I think".

It didn't take long to go from

What if

to

thanks to the false-flagging child-slashers about to take over Syria.

 

[geni]

.
50,000 such in Mexico in the drug war.
Dumped in large numbers in public.

Yes but thats Los Zeta and Gulf Cartel. We don't see the mexican goverment doing that.

 

[I Ratant]

That is deep, man. I can tell you've done your research here.

I Ratant: Thanks for the useful insights. I didn't see any such useful street views anywhere near Houla. There are plenty of area photos, though. Would be good for research I should really suggest someone else should do.
...

.
I couldn't find that configuration of street/river/houses/trees on Google Earth anywhere near Houla.
Note any photos from a geo-sync satellite will have a foreshortening effect depending on the latitude of the subject, but can never appear to be vertical images except for something directly beneath the satellite.

 

[Caustic Logic]

.
I couldn't find that configuration of street/river/houses/trees on Google Earth anywhere near Houla.
Note any photos from a geo-sync satellite will have a foreshortening effect depending on the latitude of the subject, but can never appear to be vertical images except for something directly beneath the satellite.

Which configuration? The one in the satellite images? Google Maps, Houla Syria, a bit southeast of the built-up area. Zoom out a bit, but not too much.

Squealpiggy: however good your anlysis might be, you've missed some things. The roads in the tree farm that go nicely up to each tree have been there for months at least. Any proof artillery or anything in particular drove those roads on any particular day and did anything in partcular while there? No.

Also, the leap drawn from this isn't to false flag attack, just to false evidence for artillery use in an area that's near gov. positions. But it's not, it's a tree farm, so that evidence fails and we've probably exposed a willful lie.

Cap't Sassy:
If it's do Iknow, then no, not yet. I won't be doing much either for a month or so still. Thankfully my opinion isn't needed presently to avert war.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

"Prevent war" ????

What are you, some kind of fascist?


lol...

 

[I Ratant]

Got it...
Looks far enough away from the city to be capable of being used for artillery.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Got it...
Looks far enough away from the city to be capable of being used for artillery.

Sure. Not just the right distance, the right kind of area. Right by a main road, sure, but maybe concealed under mid-size trees at the tree farm with the dirt roads. it was picked because it's fairly near known military positions. Not that I've double-checked that, or could, but okay.

What makes it dishonest was BBC's pointing out the images were fresh, from the day after, and McKenzie saying they're cat tracks consistent with artillery going up to each tree and watering it, implicitly all just appearing then, after the attack. Otherwise, it's as good a guess as any as to where.

And just a bump that the witnesses still could use some more examination. Better than ignoring the ones from Slav-people sources, or from the Western sources giving us crap like the above, we could consider all witnesses as alleged ones only, and see what they say, and wonder if it's true, and compare it to other things... that would be worth doing.

I'm still booked-anyone slightly less so wanna put the E in JREF? Give me more to catch up on later, and other people to try and quibble away in heated off-topic debates right now?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Too late to learn fully for the next one. R2Panic everyone! The damn Syrians AGAIN butchering women and children near Hama! This cannot stand, someone or other has to be smashed.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47717899

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.N. monitors tried on Thursday to reach a village where activists say Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad massacred at least 78 villagers, hours before a divided U.N. Security Council discusses Syria.

If confirmed, the killings at Mazraat al-Qubeir, near Hama, will pile pressure on world powers to act, but they have been paralyzed by divisions pitting Western and most Arab states against Assad's defenders in Russia, China and Iran.

U.N. monitors based in Hama set out for Mazraat al-Qubeir but activists said an army checkpoint had turned them back. "We have dispatched a patrol which is trying to get access there," said Sausan Ghosheh, a spokeswoman for the U.N. observers.

Several activists told Reuters that up to 40 women and children were among the dead when the village in central Syria was shelled on Wednesday before fighters moved in and shot and stabbed dozens of people to death.

Well I for one am ready to stop defending this Fascist regime now that they've thumbed their nose and did this right before UN meetings yet again. Shoulda stopped while you were ahead, Bashar, b-bye now.

Sarcasm? Sort of, but I also sort of give up and say let's just do this so they can stop doing that! Maybe that's the plan...

 

[Childlike Empress]

Exactly the same pattern.

Recently the german-based syrian-orthodox nun Hatune Dogan, who runs a human-rights organization and received the highest honor from the German state (Bundesverdienstkreuz) for her work, returned from a month-long visit to Syria. She wasn't in the Homs area, but traveled across the country and interviewed witnesses and refugees. She says that she has testimony for at least 14 massacres done by the terrorists and blamed on the government. She also describes stories in which, like the ANNA witnesses report, the terrorists kill soldiers and put on their uniforms, use their vehicles, and film themselves carrying out atrocities. Interview with her here (German).

 

[Captain.Sassy]

General robert mood's statement indicated in teams had been blocked by the army and separately by "civilians". Full statement only seems available on all jazeera.

Tim Marshall from sky news seems like a decent source from what I've read. Be says he tried to get there but was turned back by the army . Saw militia in the area.

Marshall's stuff is worth a read.

Ce is there anything in English from the nun?

 

[Childlike Empress]

Ce is there anything in English from the nun?

Here is a short summary. Same site like the ANNA witnesses because the guy who runs it specializes in translating German information on the topic into English.

 

[Virus]

You mean the same, worthless, junk source that's controlled by the regime doing the slaughter.

Use some common sense for once.

 

[Childlike Empress]

You mean the same, worthless, junk source that's controlled by the regime doing the slaughter.

Use some common sense for once.

You lack reading comprehension, crusader. It's the same translator.

 

[Toontown]

The sole reasoning behind claims of the regime's innocence is the regime's supposed fear of UN intervention - with the UNSC paralyzed by Russia and China.

A likely story.

The truth is, as usual, the opposite of the so-called "reasoning". The truth is the insurgency can ill afford a massacre on it's hands. The insurgency is badly in need of assistance. The insurgency is up against a large military machine which is backed by 3 other large military machines.

But the insurgents might be that stupid. And the regime might be that stupid, and has a history of being that stupid, as do it's supporters.

 

[I Ratant]

Sure. Not just the right distance, the right kind of area. Right by a main road, sure, but maybe concealed under mid-size trees at the tree farm with the dirt roads. it was picked because it's fairly near known military positions. Not that I've double-checked that, or could, but okay.

What makes it dishonest was BBC's pointing out the images were fresh, from the day after, and McKenzie saying they're cat tracks consistent with artillery going up to each tree and watering it, implicitly all just appearing then, after the attack. Otherwise, it's as good a guess as any as to where.

And just a bump that the witnesses still could use some more examination. Better than ignoring the ones from Slav-people sources, or from the Western sources giving us crap like the above, we could consider all witnesses as alleged ones only, and see what they say, and wonder if it's true, and compare it to other things... that would be worth doing.

I'm still booked-anyone slightly less so wanna put the E in JREF? Give me more to catch up on later, and other people to try and quibble away in heated off-topic debates right now?

.
And that image is dated 2/21/2012. Before anything occurred at Houla.