FG

vildemose

His resignation now means absolutely nothing. Too little, too late.

Am afraid Syria, as we knew it, is a past tense.

 Syrian Official:

 Syrian Official: Resignation of al-Assad on the Table

 //www.juancole.com/2012/08/syrian-official-resignation-of-al-assad-on-the-table.html#comments

All Oppression Creates a State of War--Simone De Beauvoir

About Syrian civilians

.... and choice they're faced with.  

Given the complexities of Syira, somewhat simplistic view I dare say. Things are not black (1&2) or white (3) in Syria.

If you go for rebellion but you end up with al-Qaida instead, is that black or white?

A strategy that has failed historically stems from weakness

Enduring America writes: The escalation of violence is alarming, to say the least. It is also perhaps desperate - for all the regime's force, protests still continue in Damascus and its suburbs, and the Free Syrian Army is still carrying out hit-and-run style attacks, or ambushes of regime convoys on the roads there.

WHAT THE REGIME HOPED TO ACCOMPLISH AFTER CONCLUDING IT HAD NO OTHER CHOICE

Nothing else has worked.  Regime forces are stretched thin.  Assad and his inner circle can no longer find a safe refuge or avoid harsh punishment.  So why not?  The hope is to discourage popular support for the FSA by ruthlessly punishing civilian populations anywhere place the FSA appears.  Just kiill 'em all.

HISTORICALLY SIMILAR TACTICS BACKFIRED FOR THE NAZIS

Facing supply line problems, the Nazis also used mass retaliation against civilians.  The hate they built up was immense even in places where Nazi forces were originally welcomed as liberators (the Ukraine). Recall the boomerang effect in Berlin and East Prussia as the war ended and the harsh consequences in Germany afterard (consequences that would have been even worse if not for Stalin's threat in the East). 

SYRIAN CIVILIANS NOW FACE THREE TOUGH CHOICES 

1. Continued torture, death and destruction.

2. Accept the hated regime responsible for the above.

3. Join the rebellion.

I suspect Syrians will make the same choice (#3) as victims of Nazi tactics.  In that case all they need is weapons.  Maybe it is time to supply them.  

Friday: Putinization of Syria continues & other items

Today we found the bodies of eight people who were in their houses when the Syrian army raided them. They were slaughtered by knives, two of them had even been burnt. There is the body of Yaqoub Al-Mifa'alani and his son Yousif and the two brothers Nasser Al-Qidah and Hafidh Qidah.

The bodies are being buried at whichever place they are killed in or in the garden of their houses, no one dares to go to the cemetery. Moving within al-Herrak town is like committing suicide. We have more than 50 wounded today, all of them are at home without any treatment at all. Unqualified people are offering first aid, most of the doctors here have either been killed or left the town. The whole town is under a big siege - no one can go out or get in. The luckiest man is he who can get out of the town now.

***

A RELATED REPORT ON SAME TOWN:

EXCERPT:  Some of the people here tried to flee the district today but they were stopped by the people of Sahnaya and [pro-government] People's Committees. The People's Committees told the women to get out of the cars, pierced the tyres and took the men. We are worried that they might use them as human shields to storm Darayya or if they are confronted by the FSA men.

My cousin Jamal, who left Darayya just two hours ago with his two sons and wife, was taken by People's Committees and his wife and children are still in the car in Sahnaya district...

All the alleys that lead out of Darayya are filled with snipers. You can't pull your head out of your home, bullets are falling at random. There is a government hospital in Darayya but no one dares to go there – there's a sniper on the top of the hospital. 

 ***

FRANCE ENDORSES PARTIAL NO FLY ZONE

France has said it is prepared to to take part in enforcing a partial no-fly zone over Syria. French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian cautioned that closing the Arab nation's entire airspace would be tantamount to "going to war" and require a willing international coalition that does not yet exist but he urged the international community to consider backing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria.

ON THE ARREST OF IRANIANS WHO TRIED TO HELP EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

Muhammed Sahimi has a thorough report on that via Tehran Bureau:

//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/08/news-quake-volunteers-arrested-mir-hossein-mousavi-out-of-hospital.html

IS ISRAEL BLUFFING OR DOES IT PLAN TO ATTACK AFTER LATEST REPORT ON POSSIBLE IRAN NUKES?

Today's NY Times is reporting that Khamenei has accelerated his efforts to produce nukes.  Krauthammer discusses where that may lead in a Washington Post article.

//www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-cordesman-criteria/2012/08/23/b0a618b6-ed45-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_story.html?hpid=z2

JET ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS NORTH OF ALEPPO 

Sky News's special correspondent Alex Crawford, in Syria, reports that fighter jets are attacking targets north of Aleppo, where there do not appear to be any military targets....One bomb landed near a school; it landed right on top of a house that was unoccupied at the time, the other landed near a communications target.

She said that earlier in the day fighter jets appeared to be targeting two hospitals in Aleppo...there were many more civilian casualties, including one dead child I saw. The back of his head had been completely blown away when one of the shells landed in his garden.

***

AN FSA VICTORY 

 Albu Kamal, a border town also in Deir Ezzor province, fierce fighting has been reported in recent days.

Now the FSA claims to have captured military baracks there. The LCC says:

The Free Syrian Army announced that it has taken control of over the Hajana [camel corps] military barracks and has captured the military equipment and weapons stored there.

W. Post explains motivation behind mass execution of civilians

Liz Sly of the Post writes:

 Activists say the Damascus killings reflect a new government strategy to deter support for the opposition Free Syrian Army by punishing and intimidating civilians living in areas under rebel control. Videos posted online and accounts from residents point to summary executions occurring on a scale unprecedented since the start of the 17-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad...

... Some of the deaths in the Damascus area have also been caused by shelling and helicopter bombardments, as the government pounds areas known to support the rebels. But most of the dead are civilians who have disappeared in the wake of offensives or have been seized at checkpoints and whose bodies have been discovered in groups of as few as a handful or as many as a several dozen, activists say....

 Most of the victims depicted are men, some of them elderly and many bearing torture marks, and all appear to have died either from bullet wounds to the head or by having their throats cut.

For the full story see:

 //www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gruesome-killings-mark-escalation-of-violence-in-syrian-capital/2012/08/23/597e09c4-ed57-11e1-b09d-07d971dee30a_story.html

NOTE ON DEATH TOTALS:

The figures given for civilian deaths in the story are way understated.   Enduring America says at least 800 were killed in the last three days--an overwhelming majority of them were civilians. 

Let's not be mistaken

There is a civil war in Syria, nothing to do with people trying to topple a dictator.

Civil wars are dirty, full stop.

..........

Thank you, FG, for the Mousavi update!

BREAKING NEWS: Mousavi hospitalized for tests

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian exile website is reporting the country's mainopposition leader has been hospitalized for heart tests.

Former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has been under house arrest since widespread crackdowns in early 2011 after protests over the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

Thursday's report by Neday-e Sabz-e Azadi website says the former Green Movement leader underwent three hours of medical tests and is hospitalized for additional monitoring. The report cannot be independently verified in Iran.

Mousavi and fellow opposition figure Mahdi Karroubi have been effectively silenced by the clampdown on political dissent by Iranian authorities.

OBSERVATION:

Has the regime ever considered the consequences should Mousavi die in its custody--especially in the current dismal climate?   The upcoming non-aligned conference would be the worst timing.

Imagine his martyrdom status.  Now contrast it with Khamenei's pariah status with most Iranians. 

Where is Austin Tice?

In the last week Assad's outlaw regime shot down a female Japanese reporter in cold blood.  Yestersday regime thugs broke into the home of a reporter for its own state TV, and shot him in the face because he had been sympathetic to the opposition and critical of regime crimes in blogs using an alter ego.

Now there is this: 

The family of Austin Tice, an American freelance journalist who has been reporting from Syria for The Washington Post and other news organizations, said Thursday that it has not heard from him for more than a week and is concerned for his welfare.:

The Post is now reporting that story 

 //www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/concern-mounts-over-us-journalist-in-syria-austin-tices-whereabouts-unknown/2012/08/23/857f0138-ed50-11e1-866f-60a00f604425_story.html?hpid=z2

To Azarbanoo and others who like these roundups

With its ability to limit any regime's monopoly of information (easily preserved in days past) and expoe its crimes publically, the internet has done a great service to those who live under such tyrannies.

Its second positive effect is to unite people across borders in opposing all tyrannies and seeking similar rights. 

A third effect is in the way it allows protestors to organize and strategize anonymously outside the direct reach of security forces.

Another effect (in Sunni countries at least) is in the way it encourages sympathizers in other countries to come to the assistance of the oppressed elsewhere, whether via donations or more direct action.  

The effect seems more limited when it comes to Shia it seems to me for many reasons.  Whereas a majority of Shia in Iran is disgusted with the regime, others in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, etc., look to the IRI for protection because they feel threatened at home.   

If all Middle Eastern regimes, Sunni Kurd or Shia, were democracies based on secular humanism, we'd see none of this strife for the same reasons it has been rare in Europe since the defeat of ultranationalist fascism in 1945.

Unfortunately for Sunnis, they may still have to undergo the Islamist stage (hopefully in a milder form) before catching up with more advanced Iranian thought.

Other items of interest

//news.yahoo.com/salafist-militants-attack-tunisias-sidi-bouzid-police-165436090.html

//news.yahoo.com/beyond-oil-battle-sanctions-hit-irans-merchants-172842059--finance.html

//news.yahoo.com/saudi-columnist-sparks-furore-prostitution-comments-134031491.html

//news.yahoo.com/assad-war-syria-children-084500378.html

Fascinating new details: How Bid Laden spent his last nine years

 //www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bin-laden-roamed-pakistan-for-9-years-his-widow-says/2012/03/30/gIQAYQAylS_story.html?tid=obinsite

The disturbing spread of honor killings (NOTE: THis one is especially good)

EXCERPT:

Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed's home in Warrington, Cheshire in the United Kingdom must be no different, only they used their grocery bags to stuff their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea's mouth, blocking her airways and pinning her down till her "legs stopped kicking". But that wasn't punishment enough. Ahmed punched his teenager's lifeless body in the chest after the killing, enraged by her "desire to lead a westernized lifestyle" - wearing jeans, socializing with white girls and refusing to marry a much older man. 

Shafilea is gone. So is my stockpile of plastic bags - to the very last one. But to recently convicted Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed and thousands, if not millions, likeminded others, something else has been saved, guarded, maintained.

That something also led Javed Iqbal Shaikh, a respected lawyer, to pull out a gun and shoot point-blank his 22 year-old sister, Raheela Sehto, in front of dozens of witnesses in a "packed courtroom" in Hyderabad, Pakistan earlier this month. As the bullet penetrated the "left side of her head" she fell to the ground looking her husband, Zulfiqar Sehto, in the eye. Raheela's marriage to Sehto was the reason for which her brother felt compelled to brutally murder her, and Sehto the man Shaikh regretshe couldn't kill along with his sister.   

Two women and innumerable others, time and time again, are erased from history in the hands of those who think themselves guardians of this centuries-old tradition.

//afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/22/the_dishonorable_defense_of_honor

//www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/20/kaboom

A World Without Water

//www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/23/a_world_without_water

Rustam Gelayev,

... son of the late Chechen separatist movement' leader, may have been killed in Syria while fighting on the FSA side. 

Difference btwn hezbollahis and pazdarans fighting for Assad and Chechnyan fanatics fighting against ? Hardly any. 

FG, Thanks for

Your updates.

Marg Bar IRR/IRI, Akhoonds & their Thugs.

Regime spends a ton for summit. PROTESTS PLANNED

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will convene in Tehran this Sunday through next Friday, August 31

Excerpt: HOW MUCH IS THE REGIME SPENDING?

Kaleme, the website that is close to Green Movement leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, has reported on the vast sums that the government has been spending in preparation for the summit. Among various expenditures, the website noted the 120 billion tomans (approximately $100 million at the official rate of exchange) that have been spent on building renovations; the purchase of 200 Mercedes-Benzes, each priced at 350 million tomans (for a total of around $58 million), along with hundreds of other vehicles; and the rental of two entire highrises, as well as dozens of additional luxury apartments. According to Kaleme, a company owned by a Mr. "Gh.," said to be associated with Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's chief of staff and close confidant, has been contracted by the Iranian government to transport summit guests during their stays in Tehran -- up to 10,000 visitors, including the delegations and journalists, are expected to attend.

The six-day period during which the summit will be held has been declared a holiday in Tehran, at an estimated loss to the nation of $5 billion. It was also announced that during the Persian month of Shahrivar (August 22 to September 21), the government will make available to each adult Tehrani an additional eight gallons of subsidized-price gasoline, thus further encouraging residents of the capital to view the summit as an opportunity to take a brief vacation; the announcement apparently came as a surprise to officials at the Ministry of Oil, who professed to know nothing about it.

Excerpt: PROTESTORS PLAN TO TAKE ADVANTAGE

Social networks have called on the residents of Tehran to remain in the city and for people elsewhere around the country to head to the capital and crowd the streets, so the foreign reporters who will be allowed en masse into Iran for the first time in three years can see their gatherings. Due to the summit, it is unlikely that the Revolutionary Guards will use force to disperse the people. Others have urged the people to go to their roofs during the summit and shout "Allah-o Akbar" or other slogans; see also here and here. There have also been calls to write slogans on walls around Tehran that can be seen by the foreign visitors. A group calling itself the Green Students of the Universities in Tehran has called for peaceful demonstrations in Tehran for four consecutive days during the summit and announced marching routes. Meanwhile, others havecalled on the people to create noise throughout the city to give the NAM leaders the impression that they have entered a war zone. Another group has protested the fact that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi plans to take part in the summit, while Iranians wholeheartedly supported the democratic revolution in his own country.

All such efforts must be intensified in the coming days. This is a golden opportunity to protest the terrible conditions in the country and have members of the international community at the highest level hear those protests. Having paid an extravagant price to hold the summit in Tehran -- aside from extensive concessions that many believe the Islamic Republic made behind the scenes to encourage other NAM members to participate -- the nation can turn this into an occasion in which thousands of foreigners, from journalists to politicians, can see and hear with their own eyes and ears the cries of a great nation under siege from all sides.

//www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/08/opinion-tehran-summit-of-non-aligned-states-an-opportunity-for-potent-protest.html#ixzz21TGdnnxB

UN says Iran is providing weapons, arms and intel to Assad

(Reuters) - Iran appears to be supplying Syria with weapons, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as the 17-month conflict that began as a popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad slides deeper into civil war.

For more see:  //www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/22/us-syria-crisis-un-idUSBRE87L0NC20120822

All males found in any house are executed

 An account from a resident of al-Herak in Daraa Province, Muhammed Abu Houran, to Mona Mahmood of The Guardian this afternoon:

Yesterday morning the Syrian army began its campaign against al-Herak in Deraa. They launched a vicious raid against the people who were still in their houses, though most of the people had left the town earlier.

The Syrian army executed any men they found in these houses soon after arresting them. Most of the men who were executed were found in deserted houses. From yesterday until now, fires are still burning --- there is not enough water to put them out.

After three days of fierce battles here, the FSA had to leave its positions as it had run out of ammunition. As soon as the FSA pulled out, field executions were carried out and houses were burned and destroyed. The FSA was able to keep only the southern part of Deraa under its control after long battles that lasted from dawn to the evening – almost 16 hours.

After that, the FSA got more ammunition from neighbouring towns and was able to attack some of the armoured vehicles of the Syrian army. Battles continued till 12 midday today in which the FSA was able to recover some other parts of the town that had been taken by the Syrian army....

We have had 107 martyrs in the last three days, Most of them are civilians. Forty-five of the bodies were executed. There were 13 bodies which were charred completely and today we found another nine charred bodies. We could not identify them at all. They were in the districts which were under the control of the Syrian army yesterday. Most of the executed bodies were slain by knives, and luckiest ones executed by gunshot....

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