Syria, r u all idjits?

[GuruJane]

Not in what you posted. Read it and see for yourself. As it seems you don't really want to, just limit yourself to the title:
Syria: UN Inquiry Should Investigate Houla Killings. Where does it say Assad did it?

You don't seem to have read it very attentively then:

According to survivors that Human Rights Watch interviewed and local activists, the Syrian army shelled the area on May 25, and armed men, dressed in military clothes, attacked homes on the outskirts of town and executed entire families.

All of the witnesses stated the armed men were pro-government, but they did not know whether they were members of the Syrian army or a pro-government militia, locally referred to as shabeeha.

.....

“There’s no way a Syrian military commission can credibly investigate this horrendous crime when so much evidence suggests pro-government forces were responsible,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Annan should insist that Syria grant access to the UN commission of inquiry to investigate this and other grave crimes.”

Perhaps this might assist?

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s top human rights body harshly condemned Syria on Friday for the massacre last week of more than 100 civilians, apparently at the hands of government troops and pro-regime thugs.

....

According to preliminary U.N. investigations, at least 49 children under the age of 10 were among the dead — with entire families apparently executed in their homes. U.N. investigators have said there is strong evidence that pro-regime fighters were behind the massacre.

AND THIS:

Syrian government forces and militia loyal to the Assad regime are killing and sexually abusing children and using them as human shields, the UN says, amid fears that the conflict is intensifying.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon's annual report on children and armed conflict during 2011 included Syrian government forces and the allied shabiha for the first time on a list of 52 governments and armed groups that recruit, kill or sexually attack children in armed conflicts.

"In almost all recorded cases, children were among the victims of military operations by government forces, including the Syrian armed forces, the intelligence forces and the shabiha militia, in their ongoing conflict with the opposition, including the Free Syrian Army," the report says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/12/syrian-forces-killing-children-un

UN and HRW seem to be making their position quite clear, based on eye witness interviews.

 

[Lionel Lyon]

You don't seem to have read it very attentively then:

All of the witnesses stated the armed men were pro-government, but they did not know whether they were members of the Syrian army or a pro-government militia, locally referred to as shabeeha.

Perhaps I am reading it too attentively. Not one of the verbatim witness accounts that they offer actually states this. Could they not have included a single line in the actual testimony about the killers being pro-govt.?

On the UN, the article says that: "The head of the UN monitoring mission in Syria, Maj Gen Robert Mood, told the media that some of the dead had been killed by shelling and others shot at close range, but did not attribute responsibility for the close-range killing."

It is HRW that seems to go the different route: "According to survivors that Human Rights Watch interviewed and local activists, the Syrian army shelled the area on May 25, and armed men, dressed in military clothes, attacked homes on the outskirts of town and executed entire families. All of the witnesses stated the armed men were pro-government, but they did not know whether they were members of the Syrian army or a pro-government militia, locally referred to as shabeeha."

First of all, there are always these nameless "local activists," who, like Ahmed Chalabi of yore, seem to have an open line to the media. Then we have the emergence of the person of "Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch."

But when you read her bio, here: http://www.hrw.org/bios/sarah-leah-whitson , it comes out that she's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Great!

I'm sorry, but this is not value-free reporting.

I'll look at the Guardian article later.

P.S.: "The George Soros Open Society Foundation is the primary donor of the Human Rights Watch, contributing $100 Million of $128 Million of contributions and grants received by the HRW in the 2011 financial year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Watch

I think it's becoming clear how devious it is to mention UN and HRW in the same breath. I just threw the word Houla into the un.org website, and I got this article, which talks differently from how the media arm is reporting:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42140&Cr=Syria&Cr1=

 

[blackcat]

I'd be interested to have a read. Please post a link.

just heard him interviewd LL http://antiwar.com/radio/2012/06/04/patrick-cockburn-23/

Scott Horton shoulda left a link to an article, but I scanned it the other day, and it was not a point he was unspooling, but he leaves no doubt in the interview (podcast) above

cheers

NB. AntiWar are libertarians. They are Paulians, and interviewed Paul Kucinich, Hersh, others, so they have some esteem. Also they get HArvard and Yale and Columbia profs, no kookary there.

 

[blackcat]

That is not a ringing endorsement. This Houla matter resembles the Racak incident, which, reeking of intrigue back then (remember William Walker?), was also hailed by the media arm as the "defining moment." One more reason to be wary of your kool-aid.




Not in what you posted. Read it and see for yourself. As it seems you don't really want to, just limit yourself to the title: Syria: UN Inquiry Should Investigate Houla Killings. Where does it say Assad did it?

US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice Stephen J Rap <smileyface smiley face emoticon>

 

[blackcat]

me, like to know how the ruski foreign office are pulling strings in the assad court.

And for the record, I have to beef with the russians and chinese wanting to protect their interests and sphere of influence, and their only port in the Med at Tartus.

But not seen this have much play. It is only polemics against Assad, and the chinese and Russian support, when the Turks and Lebanon and the West bloc, and more instructiving in fomenting this nascent internecine conflict.

 

[GuruJane]

Some interesting viewing...

Here is a YouTube site that presents a Sunni take on the Arab Spring. On Syria, it is anti-Assad, and in the multipart series it has produced it sees the Arab Spring as the first step in the reestablishment of the Caliphate. Someone like Assad, who is a secularist Alawite (non-Sunni), is not going to get much love here. It is an interesting series nonetheless, giving perspectives on all the countries in the region and globally:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EnterTheTruth

On the opposite side, here are two pro-Assad YouTube sites that give stories you're not likely to see in the mainstream, generally anti-Assad Western media. Warning, there is some disturbing footage in these:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SyriaTruthNetworkEN

http://www.youtube.com/user/TruthSyria

Thought I'd repost this one of yours in case some missed it the first time around. Would be interested to hear what others think of them. You really only have to watch one to get the flavour.

I watched the vids because you had posted them Lionel, thought I might learn something.

Formed the view that far from expressing a Sunni take on the Arab spring, these vids feel like the work of some extreme right wing nutcase western group. Of course could also be cia/zionist/MI6 black arts.

It's just my opinon, of course. Nevertheless I was seriously surprised that you would take this stuff seriously. Seems more like addled blackcat territory - but even he was sentient enough to take in what Cockburn had to say.

Instead of tying yourself in knots trying to debunk UN investigators and HRW, why don't you just say its irrelevant if Assad regime is facilitating sectarian massacres - there still shouldn't be intervention, and if Assad had been allowed to get on with it 12 months ago it would all have been over long ago and forgotten by now?

 

[Lionel Lyon]

Thought I'd repost this one of yours in case some missed it the first time around. Would be interested to hear what others think of them. You really only have to watch one to get the flavour.

I watched the vids because you had posted them Lionel, thought I might learn something.

And you could not but conclude that they have to be the "work of some extreme right wing nutcase western group. Of course could also be cia/zionist/MI6 black arts."

Your specialty seems to be the media business and political lobbying. But your understanding of religion and related matters has never amounted to much. This is why you cannot countenance the possibility of people who sincerely believe what these videos depict. They're not even extreme views, but pretty much par for the course. These are people who believe in something, not Toorak communists sipping on gin & tonic.

Formed the view that far from expressing a Sunni take on the Arab spring, these vids feel like the work of some extreme right wing nutcase western group. Of course could also be cia/zionist/MI6 black arts.

Nice touch with the "cia/zionist/MI6." What, you think they're playing both sides of the table--attacking both Assad and his adversaries?

It's just my opinon, of course. Nevertheless I was seriously surprised that you would take this stuff seriously. Seems more like addled blackcat territory - but even he was sentient enough to take in what Cockburn had to say.

Now you invoke Cockburn. I guess there's a first time for everything. I heard what he said on Houla (Thank you, Blackcat!), and though I am not impugning the man's intentions, I will file it away for now. From experience, I know how months, even years, later footnotes quietly appear in the paper saying, "Oh, you remember that story about Belgian babies being bayoneted? So&so just came forth and admitted we had it all wrong. Sorry. Fog of war, and all that."

And look, we have FAZ and NR(!) carrying the opposite story on Houla. How so? Assad has agents at the National Review? Really?

If I'm not mistaken, Cockburn's other suggestion is that minorities in the opposition probably have a deluded understanding of their place in a post-Assad Syria.

Instead of tying yourself in knots trying to debunk UN investigators and HRW,

Again, let us repeat for those who tried to wish it away the first time: the UN and "HRW" are two very different things, so let's not group them together. The UN is an international organization that has some level of integrity. The HRW is a paid-for political/propaganda organ. They're not the same thing, they have different goals, and they're saying different things.

why don't you just say its irrelevant if Assad regime is facilitating sectarian massacres - there still shouldn't be intervention, and if Assad had been allowed to get on with it 12 months ago it would all have been over long ago and forgotten by now?

Hello, but "intervention" in Syria has been going gangbusters for the past 15 months. We've been sinking weaponry, training, intelligence, propaganda into the place knowing full-well that this will provoke a "defining moment" that will then enable us officially to implement what is already a predetermined endgame. We do this all the time, silly.

The result, as elsewhere, will be disaster for Syria. Assad's regime needed a tweak, not wholesale elimination. A country as diverse as Syria will become a Lebanon, 1975. What was once one of the better places in the Arab world, home to some of the most refined and classiest people in the region, of all faiths, will be plunged into chaos, become a pole of instability, and be saddled with a puppet govt.

 

[Lionel Lyon]

But not seen this have much play. It is only polemics against Assad, and the chinese and Russian support, when the Turks and Lebanon and the West bloc, and more instructiving in fomenting this nascent internecine conflict.

Don't forget those pillars of democratism the Saudis and Qataris. It was soul-warming to see Hillary Clinton, dressed like Chairman Mao, standing abreast with the Saudi and Qatari royals and preaching on the democratization of the region. It's just embarrassing.

 

[blackcat]

thanks JAne

addled blackcat territory

.

I am gonna make that my sig, with your endorsement o'course

 

[blackcat]

Don't forget those pillars of democratism the Saudis and Qataris. It was soul-warming to see Hillary, dressed like Chairman Mao, standing abreast with the Saudi and Qatari royals and preaching on the democratization of the region.

yep, the sunni bloc

 

[blackcat]

gotta laff at LL getting zing'ed by Jane with the "like blackcat " epithet.

funnies al'roun'


gees these are shitty MS Word emoticons

 

[GuruJane]

Your specialty seems to be the media business and political lobbying. But your understanding of religion and related matters has never amounted to much. This is why you cannot countenance the possibility of people who sincerely believe what these videos depict. They're not even extreme views, but pretty much par for the course. These are people who believe in something, not Toorak communists sipping on gin & tonic.

Lionel, the thrust of the message in those videos is phobic. The style of the videos is entirely western. The very name of the website suggests extremeist conspiracy pedlars, most likely from the right. How could you take it seriously?

Now you invoke Cockburn. I guess there's a first time for everything.

I have a lot of time for Cockburn. I have some of his books, as I have some of Fisks books. He is very knowledgeable. Like everybody else he has his biases.

. I heard what he said on Houla (Thank you, Blackcat!), and though I am not impugning the man's intentions, I will file it away for now. From experience, I know how months, even years, later footnotes quietly appear in the paper saying, "Oh, you remember that story about Belgian babies being bayoneted? So&so just came forth and admitted we had it all wrong. Sorry. Fog of war, and all that."

He had an interesting detail that the perpetrators of the sectarian massacre were phoning the relatives and boasting as they were slaughtering them.

And look, we have FAZ and NR(!) carrying the opposite story on Houla. How so? Assad has agents at the National Review? Really?

Have you read the Faz story? It's actually very thin. No first person accounts and no-one putting their names out. Contrary to HRW.

The National Review picked up the Faz report and regurgitated it.

But the story doesn't wash, not the least because - as Cockburn says - it surfaced very late in piece.

If I'm not mistaken, Cockburn's other suggestion is that minorities in the opposition probably have a deluded understanding of their place in a post-Assad Syria.

Would hardly call that a novel insight! Not hard to disagree with him.

Again, let us repeat for those who tried to wish it away the first time: the UN and "HRW" are two very different things, so let's not group them together. The UN is an international organization that has some level of integrity. The HRW is a paid-for political/propaganda organ. They're not the same thing, they have different goals, and they're saying different things.

On this occasion both organisations were interviewing survivors within 24 hours of massacre and are speaking in unison.

The result, as elsewhere, will be disaster for Syria. Assad's regime needed a tweak, not wholesale elimination.

Assad and his regime had no intention of being "tweaked".

A country as diverse as Syria will become a Lebanon, 1975. What was once one of the better places in the Arab world, home to some of the most refined and classiest people in the region, of all faiths, will be plunged into chaos, become a pole of instability, and be saddled with a puppet govt.

Syria was never going to escape the "Spring". Assad regime has two powerful allies in Russia and Iran. Syrian military were not going to abandon Bashar like the Eygptian army sacrficed Mubarak. "Spring" plus social media/global technology did not allow Assad to quickly deal with the Sunni opponents as his father did in the wholesale Hamas massacre.
The removal of Saddam and Baath enabled this eruption throughout the region, and my belief is Assad will hold on short-term but key to future upheavals lies with what happens with Israel/Iran.

 

[GuruJane]

Lionel, the thrust of the message in those videos is phobic. The style of the videos is entirely western. The very name of the website suggests extremeist conspiracy pedlars, most likely from the right. How could you take it seriously?


I have a lot of time for Cockburn. I have some of his books, as I have some of Fisks books. He is very knowledgeable. Like everybody else he has his biases.



He had an interesting detail that the perpetrators of the sectarian massacre were phoning the relatives and boasting as they were slaughtering them.



Have you read the Faz story? It's actually very thin. No first person accounts and no-one putting their names out. Contrary to HRW.

The National Review picked up the Faz report and regurgitated it.

But the story doesn't wash, not the least because - as Cockburn says - it surfaced very late in piece.


Would hardly call that a novel insight! Not hard to agree with him.



On this occasion both organisations were interviewing survivors within 24 hours of massacre and are speaking in unison.



Assad and his regime had no intention of being "tweaked".



Syria was never going to escape the "Spring". Assad regime has two powerful allies in Russia and Iran. Syrian military were not going to abandon Bashar like the Eygptian army sacrficed Mubarak. "Spring" plus social media/global technology did not allow Assad to quickly deal with the Sunni opponents as his father did in the wholesale Hamas massacre.
The removal of Saddam and Baath enabled this eruption throughout the region, and my belief is Assad will hold on short-term but key to future upheavals lies with what happens with Israel/Iran.

 

[Lionel Lyon]

Lionel, the thrust of the message in those videos is phobic. The style of the videos is entirely western. The very name of the website suggests extremeist conspiracy pedlars, most likely from the right. How could you take it seriously?

What are you talking about? Do you even know any religious Muslims? Been over their house, seen how they live, talked to them about stuff, religion, what they believe, how they understand what is going on? Are there any in your neighborhood? Did you go to school with any? There is nothing in this series that suggests to me anything other than a production from within the community. I am not saying that this is the "normative view," whatever that might be. But I've never seen a single statement from Muslims, neither on its YouTube pages nor its Facebook page, excoriating this production as black ops. It's pretty well within the boundaries of what other religious sites say, and in line with my own personal experiences. Frankly, I just have this feeling that you would consider anything more involved than croquet and scones with the agnostic vicar creepy and "phobic." Western? What does that even mean? The most regularly featured teacher on the videos is Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein, born in Trinidad, served in its govt., for years cleric on Long Island and in the HQ of the UN, later served at the Univ. of Karachi, an articulate and charismatic speaker, and a religious Muslim preacher who has written a dozen or so books on the subject, even on the fulfillment of Quranic prophecy in our time. Would he be "western"?

I have a lot of time for Cockburn. I have some of his books, as I have some of Fisks books. He is very knowledgeable. Like everybody else he has his biases.

He had an interesting detail that the perpetrators of the sectarian massacre were phoning the relatives and boasting as they were slaughtering them.

Nothing against Cockburn, but I'm gonna wait and see all the same. In my time, I have heard nothing.but.bald-faced.lies emanate from the same old mouths.

Have you read the Faz story? It's actually very thin. No first person accounts and no-one putting their names out.

No, the HRW piece mentioned one name: the Razzak family. The FAZ story mentioned one name too: the Shomaliya family.

Contrary to HRW.

Indeed, the HRW story has published 1st person accounts. It's only that none of them says that it was pro-govt people who did it. The UN General (Mood) did not attribute blame for the massacres either.

Only the Soros-funded, CFR-run HRW said these things.

Is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) Soros-funded and CFR-run? As far as I can tell, it's owned by some crowd called the Fazit-Stiftung, whose purpose is to sponsor education and research into journalism and give any profits to charities.

The National Review picked up the Faz report and regurgitated it.

But the story doesn't wash, not the least because - as Cockburn says - it surfaced very late in piece.

"Late in the piece"? What kind of criterion is that? Besides, the FAZ story cites other sources that were written straight after.

Would hardly call that a novel insight! Not hard to disagree with him.

On this occasion both organisations were interviewing survivors within 24 hours of massacre and are speaking in unison.

No, they're not speaking in unison.

Assad and his regime had no intention of being "tweaked".

I'm not sure about that. I really am not. Does Turkey want to be tweaked? With our blessing and help they've been killing Kurds and others for decades, with more dead than the Assads ever killed. Ironically, right now the Kurds in Syria are probably enjoying more rights than their kin in Turkey. Nevertheless, I would still say that the answer regarding Turkey is "yes," even if nothing substantive has yet happened. So why not Syria? So why not anywhere?

Syria was never going to escape the "Spring". Assad regime has two powerful allies in Russia and Iran. Syrian military were not going to abandon Bashar like the Eygptian army sacrficed Mubarak. "Spring" plus social media/global technology did not allow Assad to quickly deal with the Sunni opponents as his father did in the wholesale Hamas massacre.
The removal of Saddam and Baath enabled this eruption throughout the region, and my belief is Assad will hold on short-term but key to future upheavals lies with what happens with Israel/Iran.

Hasn't the original opposition in the Syrian version of the Spring always been anti-violence and anti-interventionist? Yet they have been co-opted by Western/Saudi/Turkish trained/funded insurgents/mercenaries pouring in from southern Turkey. I've read that a lot of them are not even from Syria but cut their teeth in Libya. I guess the reason is that Central Planning want to make amends for their boneheaded mistakes in Iraq, which has now landed in Iran's lap free-of-charge, and to replace the newly-emerged East-West Shiite axis (Iran-Iraq-Syria-Southern Lebanon) with a North-South Sunni one (Turkey-Syria-Jordan-Saudi) in order to try once again to isolate bad ole Iran.

Anyway, we've talked enough. The final word's yours.

 

[Lionel Lyon]

New article, in German, from FAZ backing up the first one:
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/arabische-welt/syrien-eine-ausloeschung-11784434.html

Here is a translation, taken from here:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/06/new-faz-piece-on-houla-massacre-the-extermination.html


New FAZ Piece On Houla Massacre: "The Extermination"

A well regarded and qualified author of the prime German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported (in German) how the recent massacre in Houla, Syria, was perpetrated by Sunni rebel forces. I translated the piece to English. There was some push back against the piece and an anonymous rebuttal from Houla activists.

In a new piece (in German) the reporter, Rainer Hermann, extends on the first one and explains why his reporting is correct and why other reporting was terribly wrong.
What follows is my translation of the FAZ piece:

The Extermination
The Houla massacre was a turning point in the Syrian drama. There was great worldwide outrage when 108 people were killed there on May 25, among them 49 children. Calls for a military intervention to end the bloodshed became louder and the violence in Syria has since steadily escalated. Based on Arab news channel and the visit of UN observers on the following day, world opinion almost unanimously blamed the regular Syrian army and the Syrian regime's Shabiha militia for the massacre.
In the past week and based on reports from eyewitnesses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put this version into question. It reported that the civilians killed were Alawites and Shiites. They were deliberately killed by armed Sunnis in Taldou, a town in the plains of Houla, while fierce fighting between the regular army and Free Syrian Army was taking place at checkpoints around the village. Our report was taken up by many media outlets worldwide and was rejected by many as implausible. We have therefore to ask four questions: Why did the world opinion so far followed a different version? Why does the context of the civil war makes the doubted version plausible? Why are the witnesses credible? What other facts support the report?

Firstly, why world opinion follow a different version? It is undoubted that during the first months of the conflict, when the opposition did not yet possess weapons and was defenseless, all atrocities were done by the regime. The assumption is therefore obvious that this would continue. [Note by the translator: Here Mr. Hermann errs. There were reliable reports about deadly attacks against government forces by well armed perpetrators, allegedly foreign financed, as early as April 10 2011.] Furthermore, the Syrian state media enjoy no credibility. They use the standard labeling "armed terrorist gangs" since the beginning of the conflict. Thus no one believes them, when that is indeed the case. Two media outlets, the Arab news channel Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have become key sources even as their owners, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are two states which are actively involved in the conflict. Not without reason do we know the saying "In war, truth dies first."

Secondly, why is, in the context of the civil war, the doubted version plausible? During recent month many weapons have been smuggled into Syria and the rebels have long had mid-sized weaponry. Every day more than 100 people are killed in Syria with about equal numbers of dead on both sides. The militias that operate under the banner of the Free Syrian Army control wide parts of the provinces of Homs and Idlib and extend their dominion over other parts of the country. The increasing lawlessness has led to a wave of criminal kidnappings and also facilitates the settling of old disputes. If one looks through Facebook pages or talks to Syrians: Everyone knows everyday stories of "religious cleansing" - of people being killed just because they are Alawite or Sunni.

The plain of Houla, which lies between the Sunni city of Homs and the mountains of the Alawites, is predominantly inhabited by Sunnis and is burdened by a long history of sectarian tensions. The massacre took place in Taldou, one of the largest sites of Houla. Of the names of civilians killed, 84 are known. These are the fathers, mothers and 49 children of the family Al Sayyid and two branches of the family Abdarrazzaq. Residents of the city state that these were Alawites and Muslims who had converted from Sunni to Shia Islam. A few kilometers away from the border with Lebanon, this made them suspect of being sympathizers of Hezbollah, detested among Sunnis. Additionally killed in Taldou were relatives of the government loyal member of parliament Abdalmuti Mashlab.

The homes of the three families are located in different parts Taldous. The members of the families were targeted and killed up to one exception. No neighbor was injured. Local knowledge was a prerequisite for these well-planned "executions". The AP news agency quoted the only survivor of the family Al Sayyid, the eleven year old Ali, as saying:. "The perpetrators were shaved bald and had long beards." This is the look of fanatical jihadists, not of the Shabiha militia. The boy said he survived because he had pretended to be dead and smeared himself with the blood of his mother.

On April 1 the nun Agnès-Maryam, from the monastery of Jacob ("Deir Mar Yakub") which lies south of Homs in the village of Qara, described in a long open letter the climate of violence and fear in the region. She comes to the conclusion that the Sunni insurgents operate a stepwise liquidation of all minorities. She describes the expulsion of Christians and Alawites from their homes, which are then occupied by the rebels, and the rape of young girls, who the rebels pass off as "war booty"; she was an eye witness when the rebels killed a businessman in the street of Wadi Sajjeh with a car bomb after he refused to close his shop and then said in front of a camera from Al Jazeera that the regime had committed the crime. Finally she describes how Sunni insurgents in the Khalidijah district of Homs locked Alawite and Christian hostages into a house and blew it up only to then explain that this was an atrocity of the regime.

Why are, in this context, the Syrian witnesses (in my report) regarded as credible? Because they do not belong to any party of the conflict, but are caught in the middle and have no other interest than to stop a further escalation of violence. Several such people have already been killed. Therefore, no one wants to reveal their identity. In a period in which an independent review of all facts on the spot is not possible there can be no certitude that all details have happened exactly as described. Even as the massacre in Houla took place in the version described here, no conclusions can be drawn from it for other atrocities. As before in Kosovo every massacre must be examined individually after this war.

What other facts support this version? The FAZ was not the first to reported on a new version of the massacre of Houla. Other reports could just not compete with the big key media. The Russian journalist Marat Musin, who works for the small news agency Anna, was in Houla on May 25 and 26, in part became an eyewitness and also published the statements of other eyewitnesses. Additionally the Dutch Arabist and freelance journalist Martin Janssen, who lives in Damascus, contacted the Jacob Monastery in Qara, which has taken in many victims of the conflict with the nuns doing devote humanitarian work, after the massacre.

Sunni rebels perpetrate "liquidation" of all minorities
The nuns told him how on that May 25th more than 700 armed rebels, coming from Rastan, overran a roadside checkpoint of the army near Taldou, how these, after the massacre, piled up the corpses of the killed soldiers and civilians in front of the mosque and how they, on next day, told their version of the alleged massacre by the Syrian army in front of the cameras of rebel-friendly channels and to the UN observers. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced on May 26 at the UN Security Council that the exact circumstances are unclear. The UN could confirm, however, "that there has been artillery and mortar attack. There were also other forms of violence, including shots from up close and serious abuses."

The following sequence of events can be reconstructed: After the Friday prayers on May 25th more than 700 gunmen under the leadership of Abdurrazzaq Tlass and Yahya Yusuf came in three groups from Rastan, Kafr Laha and Akraba and attacked three army checkpoints around Taldou. The numerically superior rebels and the (mostly also Sunni) soldiers fought bloody battles in which two dozen soldiers, mostly conscripts, were killed. During and after the fighting the rebels, supported by residents of Taldou, snuffed out the families of Sayyid and Abdarrazzaq. They had refused to join the opposition.

 

[Lionel Lyon]

National Review's John Rosenthal puts out another article on the matter as well:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302998/houla-massacre-redux-john-rosenthal#

The Houla Massacre Redux
by John Rosenthal
June 15, 2012

In their “Assad’s Houla Propaganda,” responding to my recent NRO post on the Houla massacre, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and Phillip Smyth pull a sort of bait and switch. They start out as if they are going to challenge the credibility of Rainer Hermann’s report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), which attributes the massacre to anti-Assad Sunni militants and identifies the victims as predominantly Alawis and Shia. But they then proceed to spend the bulk of their post attacking the credibility of Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery in Qara, Syria.

Continued here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302998/houla-massacre-redux-john-rosenthal

 

[blackcat]

thanks LL. Fu ckn horriffic.

why did we send renditions to be tortured by Assad?

Jane?

 

[Slax]

The major turning point for Assad may of just been reached, Turkey has been seen to talk about Assad resigining, but until now has stayed to the sidelines in most of the debates and let others do the talking. With the incident involving the shooting down of one of their planes and then the firing upon the search plane after they had been given the ok, Turkey will now take a leading role.

Whilst i don't expect them to interevene in a miltary capacity they do have the other means that can cause a great deal of concern for Assad.
1. Turn off the power. Syria imports electricity from Turkey and if this stopped then Syria would not be able to fully supply its grid causing mass blackouts.
2. Allow rebel forces to ship arms through Turkey freely
3. Directly arm the rebels.

All three options will lead to an escalation in violence, but seeing the UN is being its usual ineffective self I fail to see how this can not happen.

 

[blackcat]

2. Allow rebel forces to ship arms through Turkey freely
3. Directly arm the rebels.

but they have been doing that

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

That Assad regime, at it again . . . .oh, wait

GUNMEN have attacked Syria's state-run Ikhbariya television station, killing three employees, a day after President Bashar al-Assad said the country was in a ''real state of war''.
The attackers planted explosive devices at Ikhbariya's headquarters in Drousha, about 20 kilometres south of the capital, Damascus, after ransacking and destroying its studios, including the newsroom, state-run SANA news agency said. The station continued to operate afterwards, SANA said

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/syrian-state-tv-station-hit-by-deadly-raid-20120627-212sp.html#ixzz1z31vxv3z

 

[Slax]

but they have been doing that

The might be getting arms through Turkey, but the Turks are not arming them.

 

[CLUBMEDhurst]

The might be getting arms through Turkey, but the Turks are not arming them.

However, three weeks ago, members of the loose assortment of rebel groups that comprises the FSA said they had received multiple shipments of arms including Kalashnikov assault rifles, BKC machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weaponry from Gulf countries and that Turkey was assisting in the delivery of the weapons.
"The Turkish government helped us to be armed," said one member of the FSA living in the Turkey-Syria border area. He claimed that the weapons had arrived at a Turkish port via ship and were then driven to the border without interference from Turkish authorities.

He said, she said

A Turkish official said: "Turkey is not providing arms to anybody, nor sending armed elements to any neighbouring country, including Syria." He also reiterated that Western countries were still only providing "non-lethal" aid.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-as-un-talks-of-syrian-civil-war-7845026.html

 

[blackcat]

but if you facilitate the delivery route, and throw your armz up and say "Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland"... thats BS. Like being bankers to Nazis. #winning_God

 

[Slax]

but if you facilitate the delivery route, and throw your armz up and say "Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland"... thats BS. Like being bankers to Nazis. #winning_God

Whilst providing a route may show that you condone the activity, actively arming them through the Turkish Army is a very different thing.

What's the difference between the Turks and the Russians then?

 

[Lionel Lyon]

I'm noticing that articles have been put out by the conservative media that are going against the U.S. Administration's anti-Assad line. The couple from NRO posted above were a surprise to start off with, but since there have been more. Pre-election pyrotechnics, perhaps? E.g.:

(1) Forbes: U.S. Hypocrisy on Parade: Washington Arms Bahrain, Denounces Russia For Arming Syria

"It wasn’t that long ago when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syrian President Bashar Assad was a force for reform. Now she is outraged that Russia is allegedly backing Assad with weapons. At the same time, the U.S. is arming the government of Bahrain, which oppresses its Shia majority.

Duplicity and hypocrisy may be inevitable in diplomacy. However, ostentatious duplicity and hypocrisy are not. Sanctimoniously denouncing Moscow for behaving like Washington tarnishes America’s image abroad."

Continued here.

(2) WSJ: Doubts Cast on Turkey's Story of Jet

"U.S. intelligence indicates that a Turkish warplane shot down by Syrian forces was most likely hit by shore-based antiaircraft guns while it was inside Syrian airspace, American officials said, a finding in tune with Syria's account and at odds with Turkey.

The Turkish government, which moved tanks to the Syrian border after the June 22 incident, says the debris fell in Syrian waters, but maintains its fighter was shot down without warning in international airspace. Ankara also has said the jet was hit too far from Syrian territory to have been engaged by an antiaircraft gun."

Continued here.

Rather, for the complete version of the second article, click here and then on the first link you see.