Houla Massacre, Syria: What If?

[fuelair]

What if the Syrian government's recent investigation and their consistent claims of no role in the Houla massacre is not all a "blatant lie?" (Susan "Viagra" Rice)

The question matters. Let's say intervention happens ala Libya, triggered by this plus the follow-on murders of random people at remote state-run factories (clearly done by the regime). Let's say Russia and China relent in the face of pressure, jets and drones, no soldiers, but lots of weapons and foreign volunteers funneled in, all kinds of sanctions and blockades, etc. Maybe without the air part, whatever. Regime overthrown after a six-month-to-three-year war. The opponents, whichever are most armed, are now in charge.

If the regime was behind the heinous crime, as the Anglo-American establishment is certain by design, we have saved a people from rule by such madmen. The cost might be pretty steep in numerous ways, but I'd say that's a good thing.

If not, then the regime opponents were behind it, to provoke said war, and get themselves in charge. We wouldhave handed Syria and its population over the false-flagging child-slashing terroristsof a pretty foul character. It could get quite ugly once they start their revenge purges, especially to punish harshly the regime "criminals" they blamed for Houla.

And that's AFTER the war, after "we" crushed all efforts of the demonized regime and its mant, many supporting citizens to resist. But with the Libya example, maybe they'll fold quicker, let the purge, and the destabilization of Iran begin fairly soon.

Really the answer to anyone willing to engage the OP question at all would be "well, that would suck," usually followed bit a "however..." So that can't go far. We should discuss then how likely it is, from available evidence, that it does suck, we are on the latter path and should stop and turn back before it's too late.

Let's start here: How do we know - with the certainty fitting such grave matters as the future of a nation of millions - that the Syrian regime or militias were responsible for either phase of attack?

The shelling of the town, is government-done because it was done with pro weapons while the activists/rebels only have sticks and a few old guns, right?

But after was the up-close slaughter of men, women, and children including, reportedly, rape and sodomy, eye-gouging, throat-slitting, head-hammering, and forcing families to watch any and all of it. See here:
http://americansyrians.com/syria/po...ula-massacre-were-Assads-military-forces.aspx
The government doesn't deny that these things happened-they draw attention to it, saying it looks like the work of hardcore Islamo-nihilists like seen in Algeria, mid-1990s, or Libya, 2011.

Anyway, what's gotten most of the convinced people here convinced it's the Syrian government we need to be pressuring/punishing over this, as opposed to finally helping them or just letting them help defend their own?

Do we even have any reports on the names and affiliations of the families targeted?

The fact that the Syrian government has not allowed independent investigators in to investigate and it's known agents have shot at some who tried to, re: the most recent massacre, come in to investigate pretty much settles it for me.

 

[Mycroft]

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).

So...it seems reasonable to you that these supposed "terrorists" have the ability to impersonate the Syrian military at will, have large stashes of uniforms and equipment captured off of dead Syrian soldiers, yet can't be located for the actual Syrian military to attack?

 

[Childlike Empress]

So...it seems reasonable to you that these supposed "terrorists" have the ability to impersonate the Syrian military at will, have large stashes of uniforms and equipment captured off of dead Syrian soldiers, yet can't be located for the actual Syrian military to attack?

Nobody talked about large stashes. According to the testimonies this happens on an ad-hoc basis. Spare your straw men for less serious topics, please.

Any comments on my "Guardian-boy" testimony investigation? You asked a similar question about that.

 

[trustbutverify]

The fact that the Syrian government has not allowed independent investigators in to investigate and it's known agents have shot at some who tried to, re: the most recent massacre, come in to investigate pretty much settles it for me.

Another war-monger.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

The fact that the Syrian government has not allowed independent investigators in to investigate

Anyone read the report from the Arab League monitors that were in Syria?

http://www.innercitypress.com/LASomSyria.pdf

25. On being assigned to their zones and starting work, the observers witnessed acts of violence perpetrated by Government forces and an exchange of gunfire with armed elements in Homs and Hama. As a result of the Mission’s insistence on a complete end to violence and the withdrawal of Army vehicles and equipment, this problem has receded. The most recent reports of the Mission point to a considerable calming of the situation and restraint on the part of those forces.

26. In Homs and Dera‘a, the Mission observed armed groups committing acts of violence against
Government forces, resulting in death and injury among their ranks. In certain situations, Government forces responded to attacks against their personnel with force. The observers noted that some of the armed groups were using flares and armour-piercing projectiles.

27. In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the Observer Mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against Government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and some small bridges were also bombed.

B. Verifying that Syrian security services and so-called shabiha gangs do not obstruct peaceful
demonstrations

30. According to their latest reports and their briefings to the Head of the Mission on 17 January 2012 in preparation for this report, group team leaders witnessed peaceful demonstrations by both Government supporters and the opposition in several places. None of those demonstrations were disrupted, except for some minor clashes with the Mission and between loyalists and opposition. These have not resulted in fatalities since the last presentation before the Arab Ministerial Committee on the Situation in Syria at its meeting of 8 January 2012.


32. The Mission has received requests from opposition supporters in Homs and Deraa that it should stay on-site and not leave, something that may be attributable to fear of attack after the Mission’s departure.

D. Confirming the withdrawal of the military presence from residential neighbourhoods in which
demonstrations and protests occurred or are occurring

39. Based on the reports of the field-team leaders and the meeting held on 17 January 2012 with all team leaders, the Mission confirmed that all military vehicles, tanks and heavy weapons had been withdrawn from cities and residential neighbourhoods. Although there are still some security measures in place in the form of earthen berms and barriers in front of important buildings and in squares, they do not affect citizens. It should be noted that the Syrian Minister of Defence, in a meeting with the Head of the Mission that took place on 5 January 2012, affirmed his readiness to accompany the Head of the Mission to all sites and cities designated by the latter and from which the Mission suspects that the military presence had not yet been withdrawn, with a view to issuing field orders and rectifying any violation immediately.

40. Armoured vehicles (personnel carriers) are present at some barriers. One of those barriers is located in Homs and some others in Madaya, Zabadani and Rif Damascus. The presence of those vehicles was reported and they were subsequently withdrawn from Homs. It has been confirmed that the residents of Zabadani and Madaya reached a bilateral agreement with the Government that led to the removal of those barriers and vehicles.

43. Reports and information from some sectors [teams] indicate that the Government places restrictions on the movement of media organizations in opposition areas. In many cases, those restrictions caused journalists to trail the Mission in order to do their work.

44. In Homs, a French journalist who worked for the France 2 channel was killed and a Belgian journalist was injured. The Government and opposition accused each other of being responsible for the incident, and both sides issued statements of condemnation. The Government formed an investigative committee in order to determine the cause of the incident. It should be noted that Mission reports from Homs indicate that the French journalist was killed by opposition mortar shells.

50. Some observers reneged on their duties and broke the oath they had taken. They made contact with officials from their countries and gave them exaggerated accounts of events. Those officials consequently developed a bleak and unfounded picture of the situation.


B. Security restrictions

57. Although it welcomed the Mission and its Head and repeatedly emphasized that it would not impose any security restrictions that could obstruct the movement of the Mission, the Government deliberately attempted to limit the observers’ ability to travel extensively in various regions. The Government also attempted to focus the attention of the Mission on issues in which it is interested. The Mission resisted those attempts and responded to them in a manner that allowed it to fulfil its mandate and overcome the obstacles that stood in the way of its work.


E. The media

68. Since it began its work, the Mission has been the target of a vicious media campaign. Some media outlets have published unfounded statements, which they attributed to the Head of the Mission. They have also grossly exaggerated events, thereby distorting the truth.

69. Such contrived reports have helped to increase tensions among the Syrian people and undermined the observers’ work. Some media organizations were exploited in order to defame the Mission and its Head and cause the Mission to fail.


71. The Mission determined that there is an armed entity that is not mentioned in the protocol. This development on the ground can undoubtedly be attributed to the excessive use of force by Syrian Government forces in response to protests that occurred before the deployment of the Mission demanding the fall of the regime. In some zones, this armed entity reacted by attacking Syrian security forces and citizens, causing the Government to respond with further violence. In the end, innocent citizens pay the price for those actions with life and limb.

73. The Mission noted that the Government strived to help it succeed in its task and remove any barriers that might stand in its way. The Government also facilitated meetings with all parties. No restrictions were placed on the movement of the Mission and its ability to interview Syrian citizens, both those who opposed the Government and those loyal to it.

74. In some cities, the Mission sensed the extreme tension, oppression and injustice from which the Syrian people are suffering. However, the citizens believe the crisis should be resolved peacefully through Arab mediation alone, without international intervention. Doing so would allow them to live in peace and complete the reform process and bring about the change they desire. The Mission was informed by the opposition, particularly in Dar‘a, Homs, Hama and Idlib, that some of its members had taken up arms in response to the suffering of the Syrian people as a result of the regime’s oppression and tyranny; corruption, which affects all sectors of society; the use of torture by the security agencies; and human rights violations.

75. Recently, there have been incidents that could widen the gap and increase bitterness between the parties. These incidents can have grave consequences and lead to the loss of life and property. Such incidents include the bombing of buildings, trains carrying fuel, vehicles carrying diesel oil and explosions targeting the police, members of the media and fuel pipelines. Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups.

and it's known agents have shot at some who tried to, re: the most recent massacre, come in to investigate pretty much settles it for me.

It's not 'known' that whoever shot at the UN inspectors were Syrian army or loyalist militias.

 

[Childlike Empress]

An interesting little media critique about the sound bytes of Assad's recent speech to the national assembly about Houla and the general state of affairs (full speech here) which were distortedly reported by the corporate media: Assad Speech: Lost in Translation

[...] Here, the debate is the “most radical misunderstanding” that occurs between two different “genres” of discourse, what French thinker, Jean-François Lyotard calls “differend”.

As defined by Lyotard, “differend [is] the case where the plaintiff is divested of the means to argue and becomes for that reason a victim. A case of differend between two parties takes place when the regulation of the conflict that opposes them is done in the idiom of one of the parties while the wrong suffered by the other is not signified in that idiom."

In other words, the dominant power not only defines the terms of the debate, but also the language or jargon in which it will be articulated, thereby leaving the weaker party both figuratively and literally speechless and incapable of defending itself. Unlike the “subaltern” subjects of western liberal “tolerance” who are allowed to speak but not be heard, those subjected to “differend” are not even “given voice” with all the vertical-power connotations implied by the term. [...]

 

[Childlike Empress]

Anyone read the report from the Arab League monitors that were in Syria?

http://www.innercitypress.com/LASomSyria.pdf

I did. Also very interesting (and more compelling on the roots and development of the situation, good for "newbies") is an independent french report entitled The Lebanonization of Syria which ends at the time the Arab League observers entered the country. Worth reading, as unbiased as I saw a source. Somewhere in it you'll find a mention of a tactic by the army to change signs on their uniforms regularly, so that the population can discern them from imposters more easily.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

So...it seems reasonable to you that these supposed "terrorists" have the ability to impersonate the Syrian military at will, have large stashes of uniforms and equipment captured off of dead Syrian soldiers, yet can't be located for the actual Syrian military to attack?

1) Why don't you think the Syrian army is fighting them?

2) Why do you think that it's impossible to take uniforms off dead Syrian soldiers?

3) Why do you think captured equipment is their only source of weapons?

 

[Captain.Sassy]

also possibly relevant:

Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone that he survived by hiding in an olive grove about 800 metres from the farms as the killings were taking place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest 10-year-old twins, did not.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/06/07/syria-massacre-clinton.html

Confirmed and documented names of the victims who fell to the massacre of Mazra’at al-Qubeir:
- Muhammad Hasan Ulwan, 32 years.
- Salah Jamil Ulwan
- Muhammad Hassan Ulwan
- Mahdi Ahmad Ulwan
- Sari Ali al-Hamdou
- Imad Ismael Ulwan
- Muhammad Salah Ulwan
- Salah Jamil Ulwan
- Name is not confirmed yet
- Name is not confirmed yet
- Ibrahim al-Yatim, 4 year-old child
- Ibrahim al-Yatim, 9 year-old child
- Ahmad Ali al-Yatim, 5 year-old child
- Ayman Ahmad al-Yatim
- Jassem al-Yatim
- Khalid Husein al-Yatim
- Ali Husein al-Yatim
- Faris Husein al-Yatim
- Muhammad Husein al-Yatim
- Husein al-Yatim
- Hamza Ahmad al-Yatim, 1 year old infant.
- Ayman Hamoud al-Yatim
- Muhammad Hammoud al-Yatim
- Hamoud Kastal al-Yatim, 68 years old,
- Hamida al-Abdullah
- Rasheed al-Yatim
- Ryadh al-Yatim
- Izzou Ahmad al-Yatim
- Ali Ahmad al-Yatim, 9 years old kid,
- Kheirou Ahmad al-Yatim
- Rasheed Kheirou al-Yatim
- Ali Kheirou al-Yatim
- Muhammad Kheirou al-Yatim
- Umar Ahmad al-Yatim, 3 years old kid,
- Awad Ahmad al-Yatim
- Aukeh Ahmad al-Yatim
- Fteim Ahmad al-Yatim
- Faisal al-Yatim
- Muhammad Ahmad al-Yatim, 9 years old.
- Muhammad Ahmad al-Yatim
- Muhammad al-Yatim
- Muhammad Rasheed al-Yatim
- Muhammad Shihadeh al-Yatim
- Muhammad Ulwan
- Maryam Ahmad al-Yatim
- Mansour al-Yatim
- Manfya Stief
- Muna al-Yatim, infant girl
- Noufal al-Yatim
- Rose al-Yatim
- Salloum Hassan al-Yatim
- Samra al-Yatim
- Sabrya al-Yatim
- Abdullah al-Yatim
- Khalid al-Yatim
- Noufa al-Yatim
- Husein al-Faris
- Khalid al-Faris
- Faisal al-Faris
- Mansour al-Faris

http://www.facebook.com/ShaamNewsNetwork/posts/374880909235680

Maybe AP got the name wrong and the name is Hamdou, not Hamwy?

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Reports of alleged 'ethnic cleansing' in Homs:

http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=31228&lan=eng

(Potentially biased source?)

 

[Caustic Logic]

Wow, the Syrian loyalists are in a pickle here. The motive consideration is still the same, if not even more sharply defined now. Toontown does not have it (see last paragraph for that attitude's place)

IF my suspicions are right (and they're only stronger now) it's like this: The worse the rebels get, the more children they kill and more cruelly, the more Sunni activist liars they send out describing chanting Alawite ninjas, the harder it will be to acknowledge our proxies are such scum, and the easier it is to make them angels compared to depraved and really, really, really stupid Syrian government. Ideally, our proxies will be in charge soon.

I know, I know, it's crazy. The rebel-supplied witneses are quite clear (and the loyalist ones are all presumably lying). Men in army uniforms are keeping investigators from investigating, just like the Rebels don't want. No wait, they will investigate, and already have all the names.

In fact, [the remaining] residents of Houla we recently talked to said if the government or the U.N. can't conduct a real investigation, they will conduct their own. They say they have a list of names of men who are responsible for the Houla killings. All of them are Alawites, all of them from the neighboring village. What they do with that list remains to be seen.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/05/154335032/sectarian-syrian-group-blamed-in-houla-massacre

Did the soldiers give their names as they slaughtered? Or were they recognized by face? Reliably? Of course! I will guess what they've done with the list: At least one of the blamed men lives in Mazraat al-Qubeir, near Hama, about ten miles north of the last attack. The mystery unit moved north over rebel-controlled fields, attacked his house, and slaughtered his family. Then activist-provided witnesses swear it was a Sunni family killed by the same Alawite team, there will be a survivor to swear to it, and guess what? They'll get the attackers' names again and the mystery unit will strike again. Repeat until regime change.

I know, it sounds so complicated and insane when the rebels have no motive to kill their own (civilians, children, all on the rebel side by default) and it's so much easier to presume Assad is just thumbing his nose at the West, challenging us to just do something. Because if there's one thing that's clear after Libya, it's that dictators can do anything without effective outside action. The security council has been deadlocked so far! We've been wimpified! Not able to protect responsibly! But with so much brutal nose-thumbing, that can only last so long, security council or no. A Saudi-Turkish-Western coalition of the willing is coming, and many of us will cheer the end of the wimpification. Already we've been helping them get more heavily armed, have kicked out Syrian diplomats, referred its leader to the ICC, dismissed everything they say as lies, moved to shut down all their lying news channels, imposed sanctions that are making prices soar, and made sure food aid is delivered right to the militants, where loyalists don't feel safe going to get their share. These kinds of things presage war.

 

[Caustic Logic]

I keep yakking and not researching with the time I have. C.E. and C.S., you are doing good stuff.

But I forgot to post this, one of the few things I have. A previous Houla attack, early April I hear, possibly an attack on the family of a Syrian army officer (forget where I got that detail, worth mentioning but clearly unknown). The little boy laying in a pool of blood wears a loyalist-color wristband. It was a rebel video originally, blaming the regime. Rebels apparently filmed it. Maybe the Alawite killers put the wristband on the kid as a weak effort at false-flagging?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOTDbUvRMo

 

[Caustic Logic]

An interesting little media critique about the sound bytes of Assad's recent speech to the national assembly about Houla and the general state of affairs (full speech here) which were distortedly reported by the corporate media: Assad Speech: Lost in Translation

[...] Here, the debate is the “most radical misunderstanding” that occurs between two different “genres” of discourse, what French thinker, Jean-François Lyotard calls “differend”.

As defined by Lyotard, “differend [is] the case where the plaintiff is divested of the means to argue and becomes for that reason a victim. A case of differend between two parties takes place when the regulation of the conflict that opposes them is done in the idiom of one of the parties while the wrong suffered by the other is not signified in that idiom."

In other words, the dominant power not only defines the terms of the debate, but also the language or jargon in which it will be articulated, thereby leaving the weaker party both figuratively and literally speechless and incapable of defending itself. Unlike the “subaltern” subjects of western liberal “tolerance” who are allowed to speak but not be heard, those subjected to “differend” are not even “given voice” with all the vertical-power connotations implied by the term. [...]

Sounds like some kind of whining from a child-killing dictator who's backed himself way into a corner by opposing freedom. It's simple, bomb the punk. I'm tired of this noise.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Reports of alleged 'ethnic cleansing' in Homs:

http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=31228&lan=eng

(Potentially biased source?)

Liars. Bad guys do the bad guy things. Loyalists are the ones doing that, maybe to create the illusion of Islamist terrorists trying to cleanse the area. They control the area. Consider this young lady who refutes the parliament family killing:

The Syrian government says the massacre was the work of hundreds of foreign-born terrorists stationed in a nearby town. It says these militants were out to punish one family that had a relative in the Syrian parliament, but Maryam Sayid, who survived the massacre of that family by running away, said the government's version is simply untrue.

MARYAM SAYID: (Foreign language spoken)

MCEVERS: Why would we flee and hide with anti-government rebels, she says, if we were with the government? She describes the killers as Alawite thugs wearing all black and chanting sectarian slogans. Alawites are a minority in Syria, the same group as the ruling family.

SAYID: (Foreign language spoken)

MCEVERS: This was a sectarian killing, Maryam says. They killed us because we are Sunni. All of this, of course, is difficult to verify.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/05/154335032/sectarian-syrian-group-blamed-in-houla-massacre

Apparently they're contesting the whole family ID here, but I don't yet know if Damascus has even given the family's name. Anyway, if she had to run away after the massacre and join the rebels, it's because they're not in charge there enough and you have to physically be with them to enjoy their protection. Otherwise, they can't project like the regime can in the Homs area, despite it being ostensibly rebel-controlled per the cease-fire terms. The world needs to get these guys more weapons so they can finally fight for real and protect these Sunni opposition families and the Christians and Alawites, and the random workers at remote state-run factories the regime's been killing on the side. It's getting out of hand. More weapons need to be funneled in now, before it's too late and we have civil war.

 

[Caustic Logic]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2116654,00.html

Syria's main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, also said 78 people were killed. It said 35 of them were from the same Al-Yatim family and more than half of them women and children. It said the militiamen converged on Qubair from neighboring pro-regime villages. It said some of the dead were killed execution-style, others were slain with knives.
"Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair," said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in the central province of Hama.

I wonder if the Syrians have a different family name listed? They have, or had, a smaller death toll, perhaps not including the larger number killed in an ensuing battle the activists don't mention - was that hard-hit family the one housing the attack squad that was cornered in a house and all killed? Did they have women and children there with them?:

Syria on Thursday said "an armed terrorist group committed an appalling crime" in Mazraat al-Qubair, killing nine women and children. A government statement published on the state-run news agency SANA said that after the crime, residents there appealed on Syrian authorities in Hama to intervene to protect them, adding that competent authorities headed to the farm and stormed a hideout of the group and clashed with them.

Clashes resulted in the killing of all members of the group. Two security agents were killed and five others wounded, it said.

The statement said the killings were meant to put pressure on the Syrian regime ahead of the U.N. Security Council meeting.

British Prime Minister David Cameron urged concerted action from the international community against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following the latest reports. He said Thursday that if the reports of the "brutal and sickening attack" are true, it adds further proof that the Assad regime is "completely illegitimate and cannot stand."

Speaking during a visit to Norway, Cameron insisted more must be done to isolate Assad's regime and show that "the whole world" wants to see political transition in Syria and condemns "absolutely" the Syrian regime.

So you shell the city, again slaughter dozens of innocents brazenly, again don't bother obscuring your identity, again flat deny it, again keep monitors away by force. Man is the government there ever playing this perfectly by the rebel script. They seem to be launching an ambitious ethnic cleansing campaign against the Sunni majority, all shielded with the thinnest denials and done right under the world's (rebel-controlled) microscope. That's definitely insane, and insane people like that should not run countries, I suppose.

 

[Caustic Logic]

also possibly relevant:



http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/06/07/syria-massacre-clinton.html



http://www.facebook.com/ShaamNewsNetwork/posts/374880909235680

Maybe AP got the name wrong and the name is Hamdou, not Hamwy?

Yeah, the name doesn't appear. And even Hamdou, the closest fit, appears once, not the requisite seven times. They must have meant one of the other names: Ulwan appears seven times - 8 actually. How that would become Hamwy, I do not know. It's that or Al-Yatim, or some unfortunate "mix-up."

ETA: Al-Yatim: I wonder if they are, or are supposed to be, this guy's family:
http://www.samiralyatim.com/summary.htm
Or this guy's:

 

[Childlike Empress]

There are all kinds of numbers thrown around. Apparently the SNC has "corrected" the numbers to 55, some say 25, all very murky. Does this names list from facebook have any credibility? Who is "ShaamNewsNetwork"?

Meanwhile the FAZ, leading center-right German daily and not under any suspicion of sympathy for Assad, has published an article about Houla, relying on "opposition members who come from the region and reconstructed the events based on reliable witness testimony, yet don't want to be named because opposition members who reject the use of violence have been killed or threatened in the past". Same conclusion: Not "Shabiha", but "Sunni rebels" who "cleansed" the predominantly Sunni Houla from Alawite and converted Shiite families, and the family of the "traitor" Sunni member of parliament.

 

[Caustic Logic]

There are all kinds of numbers thrown around. Apparently the SNC has "corrected" the numbers to 55, some say 25, all very murky. Does this names list from facebook have any credibility? Who is "ShaamNewsNetwork"?

Meanwhile the FAZ, leading center-right German daily and not under any suspicion of sympathy for Assad, has published an article about Houla, relying on "opposition members who come from the region and reconstructed the events based on reliable witness testimony, yet don't want to be named because opposition members who reject the use of violence have been killed or threatened in the past". Same conclusion: Not "Shabiha", but "Sunni rebels" who "cleansed" the predominantly Sunni Houla from Alawite and converted Shiite families, and the family of the "traitor" Sunni member of parliament.

That sounds very interesting. Alleged defectors, of course. Assad puppets we're to presume. His spin machine has amazing power, I hear. WIll look at it soon.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Paul danahar is tweeting live on his way in to all qudeir

 

[Childlike Empress]

Hey geni, look at what happens to this tank:


"Uranium Anti Tank Missile"? Allahu Akhbar!