Syria and UN Security Council Decision

[angrysoba]

That's putting it lightly. These individuals are not sources of information. They are not, despite any tortured efforts to twist reality, "reporters". They are professional propagandists.

One might as well turn to Joesph Goebbels regarding the history of the 12 tribes.

Or William Joyce.

Indeed, there clearly are those who go on Syrian TV and point out that the BBC can't be trusted because it follows the line of the British government and will go on Press TV and Russia Today and spout the same crap without any sense of irony but at the moment the picture seems to be far from clear what exactly is going on there.

What do you propose should be done about the Syrian government's brutal crackdown in Homs and Hama?

 

[trustbutverify]

Or William Joyce.

Indeed, there clearly are those who go on Syrian TV and point out that the BBC can't be trusted because it follows the line of the British government and will go on Press TV and Russia Today and spout the same crap without any sense of irony but at the moment the picture seems to be far from clear what exactly is going on there.

What do you propose should be done about the Syrian government's brutal crackdown in Homs and Hama?

You're right, Joyce is the better example considering this particular situation.

In these sort of "fog of war" nightmares, no picture can ever hope to be perfectly "clear". Whether it's the Holocaust, the Serbian/Croatian disaster, the slaughter in the Congo, the Armenian genocide or the recent Egyptian revolt, there is no such thing as perfect visibility. However, in these instances the perspective is more than clear enough to draw reasonable conclusions about what basically happened-despite the blubbering of the fantasists, racists and ideological revisionists.

You may disagree, but the situation in Syria seems reasonably clear to me. A large percentage of the population of the Middle East and Northern Africa have decided that living in terror under the absolute authority of sociopathic animals is no longer tolerable. The wave of revolt, which probably started with the greens in Iran or possibly Lebanon, has arrived in Syria. The initial unarmed uprising was met with unrestrained slaughter. Rather than giving up, the rebels decided to try and fight back. A significant number of Syrian military units have defected, giving the rebels some limited capacity to operate. The Russian regime has decided that the survival of the sadistic Assad monstrosity is in their best interests. In line with this conclusion, they have isolated the country physically and diplomatically while pumping enough combat material into Assad units to enable him to smash the rebellion into sawdust, and to do so with maximum brutality as an object lesson. Not having any outside source of military or medical aid available to counter this Russian-backed onslaught, the rebellion is probably doomed in the short term.

The fact that certain disgusting extreme, opportunistic groups may be attempting, predictably, to take advantage of the situation is to be expected and, to my mind anyway, does nothing to change the underlying situation.

As far as what to do to about this savage crackdown on primarily defenseless people. Tragically, as long as Russian power, both in the UN and on the battlefield, remains at the disposal of Assad I can't see anything that can be done. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[JihadJane]

Indeed so. This is one of the reasons the west is reluctant to intervene in internal disputes in Arab or Muslim lands -- it's hard to not support someone worse than the guy now in power.

WTF are you talking about?! The West has been intervening in Arab or Muslim lands for centuries!

 

[Childlike Empress]

But I think the preposition you need is "for" rather than "in" since the King of Bahrain cannot call in the Saudi Army to protect Syrian women.

Nor could he call them in to protect Bahrain women, but he could ask the King of Saudi Arabia to do that.

Point taken, dankeschön.

Full interview is online now.

On March 15, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa announced a state of emergency. One day earlier, tanks from the Peninsula Shield Force, a kind of rapid reaction force assembled by the six Gulf monarchies, had rolled into Bahrain from Saudi Arabia. In no other place were Arab Spring protests so rapidly and thoroughly crushed as they were in Bahrain. Forty-six people, including police officers and immigrants, died in the demonstrations, five of them as a result of torture. Some 3,000 people were arrested and 700 of them were still behind bars at the end of the year. More than 4,000 people lost their jobs as a result of participating in the demonstrations.

 

[bigjelmapro]

Patently false. Go to page one of this thread and get yourself a copy of the Arab League Observers Report, it contains a long list of journalists observed entering the country in the last months.

You mean the Arab league report is patently false in its conclusions. Go to the bit in the thread + 1 following your post where the report is on par with Hezbollah propaganda.

 

[Virus]

When the leftist fundamentalists smell blood they can't help being drawn to it and supporting it. They need it. They believe a utopia can be built on the ruins of the old world. Mass death is therefore a cleansing and purification. They support Assad because Assad extinguishes life. Deep down in recesses of their their black hearts they hate life, they hate the world and most of all they hate themselves.

 

[WildCat]

WTF are you talking about?! The West has been intervening in Arab or Muslim lands for centuries!

Land belongs to certain ethnicities and religions? Really?

And can't the same claim be made wrt Arabs and Muslims intervening in the lands of other ethnicities and religions since the time of Mohammed?

 

[Virus]

Only the white man can be bad. Except Russia. Russia good. Russia speak up for truth and civilized values.

 

[Weird Science]

Mass death is therefore a cleansing and purification.

Well, mass death of people they don't know personally. On the other hand, if they get pepper sprayed in a rally, now THAT is a crime against humanity.

 

[JihadJane]

Well, mass death of people they don't know personally. On the other hand, if they get pepper sprayed in a rally, now THAT is a crime against humanity.

Is this the "far left" you are rambling on about, or does it include the middle distance left, too?

 

[trustbutverify]

Well, mass death of people they don't know personally. On the other hand, if they get pepper sprayed in a rally, now THAT is a crime against humanity.

Well said. And dead-on accurate.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Is this the "far left" you are rambling on about, or does it include the middle distance left, too?

My money is on ...

... the Nazi left.

 

[trustbutverify]

If the jackboot fits...

 

[Virus]

WTF are you talking about?! The West has been intervening in Arab or Muslim lands for centuries!

In recent history, mostly to stop them invading and killing each other. Before that, the strong conquered the weak which was how the world worked ever since humans banded into tribes. Islam certainly didn't hold back on imperialism, slavery and violent conquest when it was strong and they took their shot at Europe.

 

[Darth Rotor]

CE, you are welcome, and thanks for the link. Not sure if you are more upset about the dead or those who lost their jobs. (Spiegel link) And those tortured by tanks.

WTF are you talking about?! The West has been intervening in Arab or Muslim lands for centuries!

And the Islamic East intervened in Western Lands for more centuries before that, starting in about 711 AD, and actually, from about 650ish when Northern Africa began to fall under the Crescent.

In other words, so what, what does that "for centuries" bit matter? The Arab Nations WANTED to join and participate in that very Western ideal, the UN.
So, they have.
And they've been quite the comedy show ever since.

But enough bickering, I saw a very interesting observation this morning.

It seems that the old porous border between Syria and Iraq, which was a bloody thorn in my side when I was over in that part of the world, a problem defying resolution, is now working against Assad. Seems that a variety of Sunni groups (from Fallujah? Ar Ramadi? Tikrit? Mosul??) in the central, west and north of Iraq are forwarding arms, and money, and I am not sure what else to insurgents in Syria, the bulk of whom appear be Sunni. (As are most Syrians).

That area has been a smugglers' paradise for centuries. We found that out to our chagrin, in terms of trying to control movement across a border. Assad hasn't got the Surveillance, nor the air assets (nor to my mind the sort of organization needed) to use a combined arms suite to close that border.

So he's fuxxored on that one, unless the Russians (or the Israelis?) help him out. Or the Turks. (Doubt the Turks will help).

Why would the Israelis help him out?

They probably won't but ... under the idea of the lesser of two evils ...

They might look far enough down stream and consider a consolidation of Sunni influence in Syria, to displace the Iranian favoring Alawites, as a worse evil than what they deal with now. Or not. Israelis have been trying to make nice with the Saudis for some years, and that's not all that surprising as they've made progress using the bogey of Iran as incentive.

How the Russians play this Syrian deal will be very interesting to watch. (And while we watch, the blood will continue to spill. )

As long as they veto, I think the fighting will go on, since Assad can't stop support from coming in across his border.

It doesn't matter what I think, but I think the Russian position of "let 'em play" while they make the noises about a cease fire will sustain for a while.

I noted a comment from Moscow: "When both sides first stop fighting, we can then have peacekeeping by the UN." So, NO peace enforcement, which was the role in Libya that sort of worked out.

That "no peacekeeping until there is a peace to keep" is right out of the playbook from Bosnia and the resolution there, which the Russians eventually signed up to.

Expect it to take a few months before the Russians decide to try for some sort of Datyon-style agreement or something like that, if Russia chooses to play role of peacemaker, and if anyone in Syria really wants to stop fighting for change/status quo. This isn't Bosnia, it's its own thing.

Can they (the Russians) do it?

No idea, but I'm betting the under.

 

[Virus]

Good idea for the Russians to wait as Assad owes them millions in arms loans.

 

[Weird Science]

Is this the "far left" you are rambling on about, or does it include the middle distance left, too?

I am not sure what you mean by the "middle distance left", but when the British police pepper-sprayed rioters recently, the far left went bonkers about how terrible that is, while when Assad uses artillery and tanks against rioters, that is perfectly legitimate.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Excellent piece by Diana Johnstone in Counterpunch: Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?

 

[Virus]

Is that the Bosnian genocide denier?

You really know how to pick 'em.

 

[JihadJane]

I am not sure what you mean by the "middle distance left", but when the British police pepper-sprayed rioters recently, the far left went bonkers about how terrible that is, while when Assad uses artillery and tanks against rioters, that is perfectly legitimate.

The middle distance is between the near and the far. By what characteristics do you recognize when near has become far, lefty-wise?

Please provide a reference for the incident of British police spraying rioters (I haven't heard about this before) and also a concrete reference to people on the "far left" saying that it is legitimate for the Assad government to use artillery and tanks against rioters. Please also provide references documenting these events. Thanks. From the sound of it, the events you are equating aren't really comparable.

Excellent piece by Diana Johnstone in Counterpunch: Road to Damascus… and on to Armageddon?

""""But the United States has decided that as sole superpower it doesn’t really need to stoop to diplomacy to get what it wants, and the United Nations has been turned into the instrument of US policy. The clearest evidence of this was the failure of the UN Security Council to block the NATO powers’ abuse of the ambiguous and contested Responsibility to Protect (“R2P”) doctrine to overthrow the Libyan government by force.

Early this year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon rejoiced that: “The world has embraced the Responsibility to Protect – not because it is easy, but because it is right. We therefore have a moral responsibility to push ahead.” Morality trumps the basic UN principle of national sovereignty. Ban Ki-moon suggests that pushing ahead with R2P is no less than the “next test of our common humanity”, and announces: “That test is here – in Syria.”

So, the Secretary General of the UN considers the “moral responsibility” of R2P his main guideline to the crisis in Syria.

In case there was any doubt, the Libyan example demonstrated what that means.

A country whose rulers do not belong to the Western club made up of NATO countries, Israel, the emirs of the Gulf states and the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, is wracked by opposition demonstrations and armed rebellion, with the mix of the two making it difficult to sort out which is which. Western mainstream media hasten to tell the story according to a standard template:

The ruler of the country is a “dictator”. Therefore, the rebels want to get rid of him simply in order to enjoy Western-style democracy. Therefore, the people must all be on the side of the rebels. Therefore, when the armed forces proceed to repress the armed rebellion, what is happening is that “the dictator is killing his own people”. Therefore, it is the Responsibility 2 Protect of the international community (i.e. NATO) to help the rebels in order to destroy the country’s armed forces and get rid of (or kill) the dictator.

The happy ending comes when Hillary Clinton can shout gleefully, “We came, we saw, he died!”

Thereupon, the country sinks into chaos, as armed bands rove, prisoners are tortured, women are put in their place, salaries are unpaid, education and social welfare are neglected, but oil is pumped and the West is encouraged by its success to go on to liberate another country.

That at least was the Libyan model.

Except that in the case of Syria, things are more complicated.""""