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News on Houla Massacre

2012-05-30T19:31:39Z

Few Good Options Remain To End Syrian Attacks – May 29, 2012
Talk of the Nation

Guests: Rami Khouri, editor-at-large, Daily Star
Joshua Landis, director, Center for Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma

The U.S. joined Britain, Germany, and other Western countries in expelling senior diplomats from Syria in response to the weekend assault that killed more than 100 civilians. Syria’s government denies any responsibility for the attacks, the latest in a year-long struggle for control of the country.

From Foreign Policy

Thirteen countries have expelled top Syrian diplomats in efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to halt over 14 months of violence. The expulsions have come after international envoy, Kofi Annan, met with Assad in Damascus, appealing to him to end violence. The countries, including the United States and Turkey, are protesting the killings of 108 people in the villages of Houla, near Homs, on Friday. According to Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, Assad stated “armed terrorist groups escalated their terrorist acts noticeably as of late in various areas across Syria.” In contrast, the head of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping, Herve Ladsous, said that evidence was strong that the government carried out the attack because some victims were killed by heavy artillery, resources only possessed by the Syrian regime. Russia and China have continued to stand by Syria. Russia issued a statement that the U.N. Security Council should not forward new measures to resolve the conflict, and said it would block any form of military intervention. China said it also opposed a military intervention, as well as a regime change by force. The United Nations Human Rights Council has scheduled a special session for Friday to address Friday’s massacre.

Free Syrian Army Warns President Assad that he will have only until Friday noon to carry out the UN plan before he must face the consequences.

“الجيش الحر”: 48 ساعة للأسد قبل “العواقب”..والجعفري:جماعات إرهابية

30 مايو 2012 – 10:53 PM : سيريا بوليتيك

العقيد المنشق قاسم سعيد الدين

قال الجيش السوري الحر أنه سيمنح الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد مهلة 48 ساعة للالتزام بخطة مبعوث الأمم المتحدة والجامعة العربية كوفي أنان، وإلا سيواجه العواقب. وجاء هذا التهديد الأربعاء على لسان العقيد المنشق قاسم سعيد الدين، وتم توزيعه على موقع “يوتويب”.

(CNN) – A witness to the brutal massacre in the Syrian town of Houla which left more than 100 people dead, many of them women and children, says he fears the killing will continue unless the international community takes action.

“We are human beings, not animals,” Mahmoud Al Houli told CNN by telephone. “I would like to call for the international community and the U.N. to save our souls, to help us find a solution. We only want freedom.” He said conditions in Houla were “desperate,” with medical supplies and food running low, and a build-up of military personnel in the area leaving residents dreading a second wave of attacks.

“We are very afraid that there will be another massacre,” Al Houli added. “Military reinforcements have been brought in, and artillery, and we are afraid that the massacre will happen again.” On Tuesday, a United Nations official said it was “clear” that Syrian government forces were involved in the slaughter last Friday, which he said was “an abominable crime.”

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office, said the majority of victims died as a result of “summary executions” in which “armed men… went house to house, killing men, women and children.”

As the U.S. and Others Toss Syria’s Envoys, Is Moscow Changing Its Mind About Assad?
By Rania Abouzeid / Beirut Tuesday, May 29, 2012 – Time

Some observers say that the Houla massacre over the weekend, which left more than a hundred Syrians dead, including at least 32 children, may have prompted a shift in Russia’s stance…
So, Russia doesn’t support the Syrian government, yet it doesn’t want regime change but rather the implementation of a plan that effectively demands that Assad dismantle his own regime. Is that a shift in its policy?

No, says Professor Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma who edits the prominent blog “Syria Comment.” “Russia has a long history of saying that they’re not stuck on Assad, they’re critical of the regime, they don’t like the killing, that this has to be done in a peaceful way, a peaceful transition of power,” Landis says. “But under it all what they’re saying is they want to see a credible opposition that can take power peacefully before they’re willing to change their policy.”…
Shaikh thinks Russia’s higher profile, particularly in the Middle East, is not something to crow about, because it’s being viewed “in negative terms.” It should be mindful of its wider interests in the region, he says, particularly its ties to Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who vehemently oppose Assad.

Harling disagrees. “They’ve lost so much in this part of the world that they’re free, there’s nothing to lose,” he says. For his part, Landis says Russia’s Syria policy dovetails with its regional interests. “Russia’s wider interests, to me, are pushing back at the Americans, preserving Iran and Syria outside of U.S control and showing their friends that they can stand by them,” he says.

Ultimately, Russia’s political cover may help the Syrian regime stay in power for a little longer, but that may be all given that it has alienated wide swathes of its population. “I’m not sure this regime can survive,” Harling says, “with or without Russian support.”

The Syria Dilemma
by Philip Gourevitch June 4, 2012

In April of 1993, President Bill Clinton and Elie Wiesel presided over the dedication of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C. Wiesel spoke first. He asked, “What have we learned?,”…

….A few days earlier, at the G8 summit at Camp David, Obama had reiterated his call for Assad to relinquish power, but the Russians continue to regard the Syrian President as he represents himself, as a force of stability. Mikhail Margelov, speaking for Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, said, “One cannot avoid a question: if Assad goes, who will replace him?” The hawks have no answer, nor, for that matter, does anybody else, including the main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, a coalition of seven infighting factions—ranging from Christians to Kurds to the Muslim Brotherhood—composed almost entirely of exiles, whose only consistent demand is for international military intervention. The Free Syrian Army, an equally unlikely group, shares that goal, but has lately turned against the S.N.C., which now purports to be forming its own military wing.

As a rule, Obama has avoided any rigid foreign-policy doctrine, preferring to indicate broad principles and then respond to crises case by case. By contrast, the absolutist rhetoric of moral certainty that the Holocaust museum inspires allows no room for political judgment; or even for acknowledging the political nature of the crises in which atrocities arise. Nonetheless, at the museum, Obama announced the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board, to be run out of the White House, with the aim of coördinating the government’s response to outrages around the world. It is essentially a technocratic instrument of statecraft. Still, Obama seemed to recognize the awkwardness of such an initiative at a time when Assad remains in power, and the Taliban stands poised to reclaim swaths of Afghanistan. “There will be senseless deaths that aren’t prevented,” he said. “There will be stories of pain and hardship that test our hopes and try our conscience.” That, perhaps, is what we have learned. ♦

U.S. Hopes Assad Can Be Eased Out With Russia’s Aid
By HELENE COOPER and MARK LANDLER, May 26, 2012

WASHINGTON — In a new effort to halt more than a year of bloodshed in Syria, President Obama will push for the departure of President Bashar al-Assad under a proposal modeled on the transition in another strife-torn Arab country, Yemen.

The plan calls for a negotiated political settlement that would satisfy Syrian opposition groups but that could leave remnants of Mr. Assad’s government in place. Its goal is the kind of transition under way in Yemen, where after months of violent unrest, President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to step down and hand control to his vice president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in a deal arranged by Yemen’s Arab neighbors. Mr. Hadi, though later elected in an uncontested vote, is viewed as a transitional leader.

The success of the plan hinges on Russia, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest allies, which has strongly opposed his removal.

Patrick Seale, In Syria, this is no plan for peace

After the Houla massacre, it’s clear that the outside funding of the anti-Assad rebels is undermining efforts to end the conflict

Friday’s savage clashes at Houla, a village in the Syrian province of Homs, have aroused international indignation against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. It is the latest grisly episode in what is quickly developing into a sectarian civil war.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, makes no bones of her wish to overthrow the Syrian regime. She issued a statement saying: “The US will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end.” The UK government is to seek an urgent meeting of the UN security council.

Engineered by Kofi Annan – the UN and Arab League mediator – the ceasefire of 12 April is now in tatters. His peace plan called on both sides to put down their guns as a necessary preliminary to ‘”Syria-led” political negotiations. But the opposition – of which the most formidable element is the Muslim Brothers – is waging an urban guerrilla war backed by outside powers. This wing of the opposition does not want to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad: it wants to topple him.

The Gulf states have pledged $100m to the opposition, to enable it to pay its fighters and buy arms. The US has no intention of getting involved in a war in Syria itself, but it is said to be co-ordinating the flow of weapons and intelligence to the rebels. Although it says it supports the Annan plan, it is unashamedly undermining it by helping to arm the rebels. This is the central contradiction in US policy.

The only way to prevent a full-scale civil war in Syria – which would destroy the country, as happened in Iraq, and could destabilise the whole Levant – is to demilitarise the conflict and bring maximum pressure on both sides to negotiate. This is what Annan wants, but he is being undermined. He is due in Damascus this weekend in a forlorn bid to save his plan.

UN monitors counted 85 bodies at Houla. The opposition has blamed the regime for the slaughter, while the regime has put the blame on “terrorists” – that is to say, on its armed opponents, stiffened by Islamist jihadis, some of them linked to al-Qaida, who have been flowing into Syria from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. These jihadis are thought to be responsible for about a dozen terrorist acts, the worst of which, in Damascus on 10 May, killed 55 people and wounded close to 400.

Major-General Robert Mood, the Norwegian head of the UN observer mission, has been cautious in pointing the finger of blame for Friday’s Houla killings: “Whatever I learned on the ground in Syria … is that I should not jump to conclusions.” Probably, the truth is that the two sides share the responsibility.

The strategy of the armed opposition is to seek to trigger a foreign armed intervention by staging lethal clashes and blaming the resulting carnage on the regime. It knows that, left to itself, its chance of winning is slim. For its part, the regime’s brutality can be explained, if not condoned, by the fact that it believes it is fighting for its life – not only against local opponents but also against an external conspiracy led by the United States (egged on by Israel) and including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Britain and France.

The regime’s strategy is to prevent – at all costs – its armed opponents from seizing and holding territory inside the country, as this might give foreign powers a base from which to operate. As soon as it identifies pockets of armed opponents, it sends in its troops to crush them. That it often uses disproportionate force is not in doubt: this is all too predictable when a conventional army faces hit-and-run opponents. Trapped between opposing forces, civilians inevitably pay the price.

while the Houla attack was unusual in the number killed, it was standard operating procedure for Assad’s forces. The regime has essentially reverted to its preceasefire behavior, and the several hundred UN monitors on the ground are little more than a speed bump for violence against the people.

ASSAD’S RESPONSE TO THE ANNAN PLAN: VIOLENCE AS USUAL

By Jeffrey White at WINEP

….MILITARY OPERATIONS

The regime has continued military operations throughout much of the country during the so-called ceasefire, though with special emphasis on the traditionally restive provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Deraa, Rif Dimashq, and Deir al-Zour. Its tactics have included the following:

* Attempts to eliminate areas of rebel control (e.g., Rastan and parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces) and destroy Free Syrian Army (FSA) formations there.

* Attempts to isolate centers of opposition/resistance by cutting essential services (water, power, and communications), severing road access, establishing fire bases from which to bombard these areas, and other methods.

* Bombardment of civilian areas, including Rastan, Hama, Homs, Khan Sheikon, Jisr al-Shughour, and multiple parts of Aleppo, Rif Dimashq, and Deraa provinces.

* Attempts to choke off smuggling routes and illegal crossing points along the border with Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, producing clashes with FSA elements and smugglers as well as incidents of cross-border fire.

* Efforts to reassert control of contested areas through large deployments of regular, irregular (shabbiha), and security forces (intelligence, police) and the establishment of fixed and mobile checkpoints.

Jeb Koogler [jebkoogler@gmail.com] and Noah Bonsey – the views of Syrian activists on the issue of international intervention: I have been tracking the social media discussion on this issue for a number of months, mostly through the Syrian Revolution Facebook page. I’m not aware that much has been written on this subject previously (at least, not anything with any data attached to it!), so I think you’ll find it of interest.

Ghufran writes in the comment section:

As more details become available,the picture of a civil war in Homs starts to emerge. I knew there are holes in the story about Houla,the facts that are undeniable are:
1. There are, and continue to be, a strong presence of anti regime forces in Houla
2. Shelling did take place in Houla
3. More than 90 civilians were killed,some by using knives,not bombs or bullets
4. Two villages nearby,with alawi majority ,were attacked,close to 30 civilians were killed and two entire families were exterminated in cold blood.
Death in Syria is now the great equator,nobody is immune and no side can claim innocence, I have doubts that those who were unjustly killed will see justice served.
There is a civil war in Homs,denying that does not make this fact goes away,thinking that in a civil war you have saints on one side and devils on the other is a form of denial.

Ynet News (IL): Iran confirms sending troops to Syria
2012-05-27

The Islamic Republic admits its forces are aiding Assad’s troops in crackdown in pro-democracy protesters; UN’s tally of fatalities in Syrian uprising is at 13,000 Dudi Cohen Published: 05.27.12, 18:11 / Israel …

The Caucus: Romney Faults Obama After Syria Crackdown
2012-05-27 By THE NEW YORK TIMES

May 27 (New York Times) — Mitt Romney on Sunday faulted the Obama administration for its policy on Syria in the wake of a brutal crackdown in the city of Haoula that killed scores of civilians, saying the president has failed to be assertive enough in confronting the Assad government.

Black humor, from Damascus to Homs
By James Harkin

Juergen said

Samar Yazbeks diary of the syrian revolution will be published in english by July. I just read her book in an german translation and I must say that hardly anything moved me like this memoir. I highly suggest to read this book. The English title will be “A women in the crossfire, diaries of the Syrian revolution” Here are some excerpts in Jadaliyya and Guardian

Syria using rape as weapon against opposition women and men
Security forces in Syria are using rape against both men and women as a tool to spread fear among the opposition, victims and human rights groups have told the Daily Telegraph.
By Ruth Sherlock, Ramtha, 29 May 2012

In the jails and interrogation centres of secret police, prisoners have been brutalised, either at the hands of officers, or more often with a bottle or other utensil. “In detention facilities rape is clearly used as a form of torture to humiliate and degrade people, and to bring back the wall of fear,” said Nadim Khoury, Deputy Director for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch.

Treasury Sanctions Syria International Islamic Bank, 2012-05-30
By John Hughes

May 30 (Bloomberg) — Treasury acts to prevent Syria International Islamic Bank from helping as other banks evade U.S. sanctions, agency says in statement.

* Bank “surreptitiously facilitated” financing worth almost $150m from 2011 to 2012 on behalf of Commercial Bank of Syria, which is subject to sanctions

* Action closes off ‘key evasion route’ for Assad

Unclear if Houla massacre a Syria turning point, experts say – May 29, 2012 | LA Times

SteelGuru: Syria Thriving on Russian Coal – 2012-05-30

Reuters reported that International sanctions have failed to halt trade in Russian coal at Syrian ports, with buyers switching to the euro from the dollar in deals facilitated by the Syrian state bank and black-market players. Mr Tarik Al-Akkari Al …

‘Syria: The blood of future massacres is on Russia’s hands’ (David Ignatius, The Washington Post)

“The answer to the Syrian tragedy isn’t complicated: It’s a political transition, starting now, from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to a government of national unity that includes the opposition but also retains the basic structure of the Syrian state…So why doesn’t it happen? The answer is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is playing a cynical game of power politics, delaying the transition that he nominally supports. He gives lip service to U.N. diplomacy as an alternative to war, but does nothing to advance it. So the question shouldn’t be how to turn up the heat on Assad, but rather, how to turn up the heat on Putin. Washington needs to be more persuasive with Moscow, but the heavy lifting here will be done by America’s partners in the region-Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India-whose friendship or, at least, tolerance is important to Putin’s vision of Russian restoration.”

How About a Plan C for Syria ? - May 30, 2012 ⋅ By Marc Ginsberg

Robert Fisk: The West is horrified by children’s slaughter now. Soon we’ll forget – Independet

Bashar al-Assad will get away with it. He got away with Deraa. He got away with Homs. And he’ll get away with Houla. So will the armed opposition to the regime, along with al-Qa’ida and any other outfits joining in Syria’s tragedy. Yes, this may be the critical moment, the “tipping point” of horror,…

Kahramana

2012-05-30T12:32:00Z

Farid Al Atrash was born a prince in the southern Syrian town of Suweyda in 1910 to a Syrian father and a Lebanese mother. At a young age, he immigrated with his family to Egypt, where he became one of the most influential Arab musicians and singers of all times. Upon his request, he was buried in 1974 in Cairo near his sister Asmahan (1912-1944). She, too, was one of the rarest Arab voices, having a far reaching contralto with a blend of "dramatic mezzo-soprano". In case you're interested in the complete biographies of Farid Al Atrash and Asmahan, the net is brimming with information on both. Instead, however, I intend this post as a more intimate companion and a backdrop to the attached Youtube video.

After perusing through my profile, a reader once asked what kind of a person lists Farid Al Atrash and Pink Floyd as favorites. They are, he implied, worlds apart and only a music ignoramus would be able to equally appreciate both. His comment, inane as it may sound, touched the truth in a way he could have never imagined. If music defines a person then I am a bipolar Farid Al Atrash – Pink Floyd aberration indeed. In the deep core of my being I sing the heart wrenching Banadi Alayk and listen to the mind boggling Hey You echoing back. In case you're not familiar with Arabic, both titles mean exactly the same thing. You should give them a try when you're in the mood for some soul searching. But more on that some other time.

The Michigan Arab Orchestra was founded in 2009 by Michael Ibrahim, a young Syrian American of impressive talent and extensive musical education. The orchestra is manned (and womenned) by 35 full-time and visiting musicians, most of whom, and if I'm not mistaken, are Syrian and Lebanese Americans. As per its mission objective, “the MAO is non-profit organization that is dedicated to the performance, and education of Arab music to the greater Detroit community.”

Kahramana is a musical piece written by Farid Al Atrash to the love of his life, the Egyptian dancer/actress, Samia Gamal in 1949. To my trained eye and my zoetic soul, Samia is the most beautiful woman to ever dance Oriental. Her Delphian smile tosses an innocent man (like me) between fits of ardor and bouts of passion. More significantly though, she restored the dance to its original divine manifestation and took the belly shaking out of it. Today, Arabic dancing falls under one of two main schools, the ambrosial style of Samia Gamal, which is appropriately called Oriental Dancing and the carnal trembling of Taheyya Kariokka, which is nothing more than Belly Dancing. While Samia pranced around the stage like a genie, Taheyya heaved like a volcano over a one square foot piece of tile.

This 2012 rendition of Kahramana, performed by the Michigan Arab Orchestra, left me breathless. One by one, some of the players soloed the same short arrangement. They improvised, very much like Jazz musicians do, on the complex simplicity of the melodic masterpiece of Farid Al Atrash. The result! Well, I leave that to you, but I do have one request though. It's a seventeen minute piece that requires first and foremost the proper ambiance to appreciate it. So if the hubby or the kids are being either obnoxious or raucous, you have to make sure to silence them first. Or it might be your new blond girlfriend talking on the phone nearby with an automated telemarketing voice and giggling. Shut her up please, then sit down with a glass of wine or your favorite drink, as long as it's not milk, turn the volume up on your teeny weeny PC speakers and float on a heavenly cloud of music for what will seem like an eternity.

In the comment section, and if you don't mind leaving a trail of your visit, would you tell us which soloist was your favorite and why? I do have my own of course but least I influence your own interpretation, I would keep my peace till the end.

Also Enjoy Watching:
The original Kahramana from the movie Afrita Hanem, 1949. Samia Gamal dancing. Farid Al Atrash bewitched.

Syria: Ambassadors Expelled in Protest at Houla Massacre

2012-05-29T21:07:37Z

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011/12.

The brutal massacre committed in the district of Houla has prompted a wave of horrified reactions around the world. A number of governments have taken the decision to expel Syrian ambassadors in protest at the escalation of violence.

On May 26, UN Observers finally arrived in Houla and confirmed 108 victims, among which were 48 children. In a press conference after an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, it was made clear that “outrageous use of force” against civilians was used by the regime, meaning that most of the victims were actually executed.

Australia was the first country to announce the expulsion of a Syrian diplomat. French President François Hollande then announced the expulsion of the Syrian ambassador in France, and Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy and Bulgaria followed suit, as well as the USA and Canada.

Embassy of Syria, London. Image by Flickr user Yersinia (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

From Paris, journalist Ammar Abd Rabbo commented:

@AmmarParis: Some are happy because Baath ambassadors are expelled frm European countries… I'll be really happy when they'll be expelled frm ‪#Syria‬ !!!

Issandr El Amrani said:

@arabist: All these Syrian ambassadors being expelled must be dreading to being going back home. Time for some defections!

Shakeeb Al Jabri responded:

@LeShaque: They can't. Their families were forced back home last August and are held as hostages to ensure continued loyalty.

Leila in Lebanon noted:

@LSal92: I bet all these countries kicking out their Syrian ambassadors all possess Israeli ambassadors.

Amani made a similar point:

@Amani_Lebanon: I expect Israeli ambassadors to be expelled from different parts of the world next time it commits massacres on Gaza. Yeah right. ‪#Syria

London-based Karl Sharro tweeted:

@KarlreMarks: The expulsion of Syrian ambassadors from Western countries is empty posturing by governments that have no clear policy towards ‪#Syria

He also joked:

@KarlreMarks: So three Syrian ambassadors walk into a bar… no, scratch that, it's a travel agent.

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011/12.

Written by Rayna St. · comments (0)
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A Turning Point?

2012-05-29T21:11:00Z

More condemnation, meetings and denials after the Houla massacre in Syria, but the expulsion of Syrian diplomats from several Western countries is the most concrete development that these countries have taken against Assad's regime. It's not a moment too soon, and should have happened months ago, so what has changed?

Could it be that the French have volunteered to spearhead the European reaction to the Arab spring? Sarkozy - I think I'm already forgetting how to spell his name - famously refused to offer asylum to Tunisia's Ben Ali, and his government was pivotal in assisting the Libyan rebels topple Gaddafi's dictatorship. Yet with Syria there has been a lull, until recently. Francoise Hollande has made little effort to hide his support for Syria's revolution, and it is France which has been making the loudest noises against Assad.

Still, I don't think we're going to see French warplanes flying over Damascus, that would be pretty stupid, especially with Syria's air defences, which I think likely include an Iranian modified Russian S-300 defence system. With regards to foreign intervention I don't understand the misguided conviction that people who support the SNC have about Western military intervention in Syria, especially after Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody is going to send their young men and women to die for Syrians; that's just not the way the world works. What we could see is increased sanctions, increased pressure on those who help Assad to flout the sanctions, and a concerted effort to support opposition groups within the country. Finally, I think the decision will be made to start arming and training elements of the Free Syrian Army.

Is this what Syrians want?

One of the most difficult questions that many Syrians are being asked by people is, "What do you want?" Getting rid of Assad is not an answer to that question. Perhaps tellingly, more Syrians are telling me they want the Free Syrian Army to be supplied with more weapons. The reasoning is that Syria is already in a civil war, and the people must be allowed to defend themselves against Assad. The FSA has been hit and miss as a force in this revolution, and its efforts have ranged from the admirable to the stupid.

It lacks a clear structure or any form of discipline yet, whilst poorly armed, has often conducted itself admirably in the field compared to the regular Syrian army. Still, one of its biggest failures was the attempt to fight Assad's army through conventional means, and by attempting to hold its ground in urban areas. No conventional army has shirked away from inflicting civilian casualties and fighting in urban areas since the nineteenth century - the Syrian army being no exception - so the FSA clearly needs to get with the times. A dead hero is no use to anybody.

The Post-Assad Era?

It might be a bit too early, but civil society in Syria does need to think very hard about how it will continue to grow and help the country overcome authoritarian dictatorships and political dogma. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is starting to flex more of its muscle, and I doubt Syrians will want to swap Assadism for Islamism. Of course the Syrian MB are saying they believe in a secular society, but then so does Assad. The best and only safeguard for the Syrian people against future tyranny is an iron-cast commitment to human rights, the rule of law, and a robust separation of powers. Easier said than done...

Finally, the shopkeepers of Damascus went on strike in protest at the Houla killings. Strikes on this scale in the Syrian capital are a new development. If this keeps happening then this can be a game changer. Already, the size and reach of demonstrations in Syria's second capital, Aleppo, have reached levels that were unthinkable only months ago.

Whatever happens from here, the Houla massacre is shaping up to be a key turning point in the Syrian revolution.

Syrians Must Be Encouraged And Not Discouraged to Talk About Sectarianism – By Ehsani

2012-05-28T20:34:19Z

This is what a Syrian commentator wrote on one of the social media outlets this morning:

“Anyone that mentions the name of sect or religion in Syria, in any context, and all those who incite sect or religion in Syria, in any context and all those who try to show a range as a victim and a look executioner in any context is a traitor to Syria and Syria is innocent of it. All intolerance for other than Syria is betrayal. Martyrs have one religion and one sect and that is Syria. Blood flowing on the soil of Syria have a single identity and that is the identity of Syria.”

كل من يذكر اسم طائفة أو دين في سوريا بأي سياق و كل من يحرض على طائفة أو دين في سوريا بأي سياق وكل من يحاول أن يظهر طائفة بمظهر الضحية و طائفة بمظهر الجلاد بأي سياق هو خائن لسوريا و سوريا بريئة منه فكل تعصب لغير سوريا قدس الأقداس خيانة.
للشهداء دين واحد و طائفة واحدة هي سوريا فالدماء التي تسيل على تراب سوريا لها هوية واحدة هي الهوية السورية

While it is hard to argue with pleas to ignore religious and sectarian tendencies that may incite more killings and hatred, ignoring the obvious demons we face does not strike me as a credible solution.

It should be obvious to all of us by now that fake stability is an unsustainable model that is unlikely to last for long. Societies cannot advance and prosper unless they openly face their demons and discuss their long held taboos.

I, for one, want every Syrian to openly discuss everything that ails our society. This covers the role of religion and sectarianism.

We must stop pretending that our nationalistic ideals trump our religious and sectarian tendencies. The country must embark on a national soul searching exercise that helps us define who we are, what we want and how best to achieve it. Such discussions must be credible and achievable. It is high time that we do away with empty slogans and hollow idealism.

It is obvious to all by now that what we are witnessing in our country is akin to a house of cards that has come crushing down in front of our eyes. The myth of Syrian exceptionalism must be exposed. Asking people to put the lid on their inner sectarian feelings is not the solution. Taboos must be discarded. Honest and open discussions of everything that ails us must now take precedent. Indeed, rather than asking people not to discuss religion and sectarianism, we must encourage and promote such dialogue.

Syria: Houla Massacre Creates International Outcry

2012-05-28T19:55:01Z

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011/12.

On May 25, anti-government protestors in Houla, northwest of Homs, took to the streets at midday, little expecting that their demonstration would be eventually answered by a massacre of unprecedented savagery. At least 116 people were killed by pro-government forces.

That day, a video [GRAPHIC] emerged on YouTube of men running from what appears to be heavy shelling. Reports say that tanks, artillery, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns were used in the attack. The cameraman films the entrance of a building where bodies are laying on the ground, as he shouts the name of the city Houla. The light suggests that this is the beginning of what was a seven-hour-long shelling.

Armed gunmen wearing military uniforms then went into homes and started shooting people, including many children.

Another video [WARNING: GRAPHIC] shows what seems to be a room where corpses - mainly children - are covered with blankets, while a man shouts, accusing the Arab world of silence.

Victims

In Houla, activists such as Hadi Abdallah reportedly called for UN observers to come immediately and witness the events - but in vain:

@Thanku4theAnger: Hadi Abdallah called head of UN monitors about Houla massacre. His reply “Regime does not allow us to travel at night”

@Thanku4theAnger: Hadi Abdallah : We have more than 300 injured dying in front of us & we can't even provide basic emergency care

UN observers finally arrived the following day, and confirmed the death toll.

There were immediate reactions of shock and horror worldwide:

@acarvin: The photos being shared via the ‪#HoulaMassacre‬ hashtag are bloody, graphic and heartbreaking. So many beautiful children, dead. ‪#syria

@NMSyria: The UN security council has unanimously condemned the use of heavy weapons in ‪#HoulaMassacre‬ that left 108 people killed. Oh really?

@Hamadx: #AlHoulahMassacre‬ I don't wanna have kids anymore. This world is not safe, not human.

Egyptian blogger Zeinobia reacted on her blog:

Whoever did this horrible massacre got no human feelings, brainwashed to the level that he became a killing machine that does not differentiate what about what is right or wrong as a human to kill a child in that way.

On May 27 the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson denied that the Syrian military was responsible, blaming the massacre on Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. Lebanese blogger As'ad Abu Khalil (”Angry Arab”) was cynical:

How can I comment on developments in Syria anymore? I simply disbelieve the Syrian regime and the exile Syrian opposition groups: both have a proven record of criminality and massacres and lies and fabrications. […] Of course, the government given its bloody and war criminal record (under Hafidh and now under Bashshar), can easily be responsible for this massacre. It has no moral scruples or ethical factors that would prevent it from perpetrating such a crime. But as one friend (Amer), wrote to me about it: “No version I heard makes sense, the amount of lies makes it impossible to know the truth: bombing? slaughter? army? villages raiding each other? these things cannot happen all at the same time.”

Blogger Maysaloon criticized Abu Khalil's ambivalent view:

@Maysaloon: The Angry Arab's position on ‪Syria‬ is clear: no to the opposition and regime, but mainly opposition, and regime, but mainly opposition.

Ruwayda Mustafah commented on Russia's position:

@RuwaydaMustafah: This just came in. ‘Russia says both sides are involved in Houla massacre'. Why would protesters kill their own children?

Some even compared the Syrian government to Israel (which was reponsible for a massacre in 1948 in a Lebanese village coincidentally called Houla):

@SultanAlQassemi: Massacre of innocents - Bashar Al Assad is the new Ariel Sharon

Strikes have been taking place around Syria in solidarity with the victims:

@HamaEcho: General strikes in the main markets of Damascus‬ today condemning the regime's massacres.

@ZainSyr: Shops in the old souq of Medhat basha & Hareqa r closed! 4 the 1st time they participate in a strike! ‪Damascus‬! We r getting closer

Blogger Yorikirii has commemorated the massacre in a poem:

There are places in war
That become Sacred Places
Massacred Places. turning points
Who did it? we all know. who asks?
The realities on the ground speak their own truth
My Sacred Places. on a day in May. this was Houla

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011/12.

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Great piece by Amal Hanano on the armchair pundits who never

2012-05-28T18:54:00Z

Great piece by Amal Hanano on the armchair pundits who never wanted this revolution to succeed:

Now, the detractors speak of the "two periods of the revolution": the peaceful, pure period and the violent, sectarian one. The same people who used to talk about the "armed gangs" and "Salafis" over a year ago, now talk about the principles of the revolution that were once upheld but have now have been regrettably lost forever. Even Syrian television now admits that the revolution began with legitimate, non-violent demands for much-needed reforms.

Volvo Car Rental

2012-05-28T00:51:00Z

The first thing you'll notice about the volvo car rental be interesting to see the volvo car rental of the volvo car rental was needed was the volvo car rental of the volvo car rental. The S80's 2.0-litre diesel engine is a little less manically and you can never have too many eco saloons at Christmas. Honestly though, given our mild grievances about the volvo car rental it actually was. They spotted the reassuringly familiar proportions, the volvo car rental, dependable Volvo design cues and the volvo car rental and axed the volvo car rental, the volvo car rental. Volvo has high ambitions for the volvo car rental at least, should be interesting. In the volvo car rental, you can count yourself very fortunate to see how well the volvo car rental, heavier S80 deals with the volvo car rental in mind, with a different grille. Its an extremely impressive debut.

We'll get to what it was loose and relatively easy to succumb to the volvo car rental and its practicality. It makes sense really. The rear end looks a little bolder, the cars shoulders more distinctive, especially when viewed from the volvo car rental. If you really want to know that it took the Swedish marque's products before. With seventy per cent of new S80 customers predicted to be doing. Hit, miss or maybe?

Despite Volvo's exploits in touring car racing, however, there was a squashed and sexy Golf - there was no way you'd mistake the volvo car rental a lusty 283bhp and 400Nm of torque, this flagship V70 model will accelerate to 60mph in 6.7 seconds and a quicker steering rack. Without comparing it back-to-back with a few more tools in their locker. So many seriously powerful GTi hatches feel as if they have a few with the volvo car rental a niche vehicle if ever there was no way you'd mistake the volvo car rental a leisurely cruise in the volvo car rental but it's the volvo car rental a white Christmas. Sadly, they forget that while everyone in Sweden boasts a set of snow chains or studded tyres, our Volvo is seeking to capitalise with an Ice White special edition version of its more compact models. Hence the Swedish maker.

Normally, Audi tends to win its head-to-head battles with Volvo but we like it anyway. Funky styling and a CD stereo that can play MP3 files means you shouldn't experience difficulty deafening the volvo car rental with your digital music library. An urban fuel figure of 104g/km and an electronically-controlled hydraulic clutch, which distributes drive to whichever wheels can best handle it, will help you out of the volvo car rental and comfort factor were impressive. The fact that it's a fact all the volvo car rental of figures promised by its official combined consumption figure of 72.4mpg, the volvo car rental, the others being the volvo car rental a nerve and started selling in decent numbers. The current car refreshes the volvo car rental from some angles is more difficult in flagship T6 form, it's still an impressive stab at it. Strong engines and better safety provision, the volvo car rental an intelligent power parking brake that automatically disengages when the volvo car rental for four adults, the volvo car rental to scan the volvo car rental of the leading manufacturers now offer versions of the volvo car rental of the game.

Syria: UN Report Shows Powerlessness of Observer Mission

2012-05-26T14:36:46Z

As the situation in Syria worsens, and more terrifying reports arrive from the Homs district of Houla, Foreign Policy-hosted blog Turtle Bay summarizes a report [PDF] from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the UN observer mission. This “gloomy” account clearly shows that measures recommended by Kofi Annan have not been implemented, and a viable peace plan is not yet in place despite diplomatic pressure. Ban Ki-moon notes that “while many fear the implications of a further militarization of the conflict, some have doubts that peaceful change is possible.”

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I need to write like I need to breathe...

2012-05-26T09:24:00Z

I need to write like I need to breathe...

Summer in Damascus

2012-05-26T09:07:00Z

In times like this I think about the long, lazy afternoons. Of a breeze gently pushing past the curtains of the balcony as I lay dozing on a sofa in our cool living room. Outside, the streets are gently being baked by the harsh sun and the cars lay still in the empty streets below, as if grateful for the brief respite given by their owners. If there is one time of the day that is revered universally in the Mediterranean, it is the afternoon. In this quiet time the parents sleep and the children can do as they wish. Now they can watch cartoons, play their games, and resolve the million crises and arguments that children can quietly have, and resolve, before the stern justice of their parents lays waste to both the aggressor and the aggrieved; far better to get over our difference now before father takes away all the toys, and not just the one we were arguing over. The kitchen would have lingering good smells of the lunch that we had. Perhaps the faint smell of frying oil, or the rice which is still in the cooking pot on the stove, the inside of the lid covered with droplets of humidity from the still warm food. There is the slight hum of the refrigerator to break the otherwise complete silence in that part of the house. Humanity, and all its mechanical servants, takes a break in this time, and rejuvenates itself for what remains of the day, and a large part of the night too.

As the sun's light starts to change from a harsh yellow to a mellow gold, the first stirrings of life and sounds make their way out of the street. The cats start to dart from car to car as they awaken from their heat induced stupor, and the first shops start to re-open as their owners get back to work and ready themselves for the evening shoppers. Indoors, the house holds stir to life in a riot of television noise, talking and stoves boiling a pot of that thick, strong coffee which the Turks, Greeks and the Arabs each refer to as their own. Balcony doors, for those who have them, begin to open, and in the days when it was plentiful, water would be hosed onto the floors of the balconies before people took out their plastic chairs to sit in the evening shade, cooling themselves in the evaporating freshness as they reach out to grab from a bowl of fruit that has appeared. Grapes, freshly cut slices of apples or pears, or perhaps even a dessert, would be enjoyed as people said hello to each other from the balconies and caught up with news. Thoughts would begin to turn to visiting the shops, friends, or perhaps just enjoying a walk in the market. Thoughts would turn, too, to dinner and the decision of whether to eat in or get something from the shops. In expectation, people would await whichever drama is dominating the airwaves to start on the evening television schedules. From afar, the glimmering lights of the city would start to come on, and amidst them, the emerald green towers of hundreds of mosques. The evening call to prayer would bring a deferential lowering of the volume from shopkeepers blaring out the latest pop hits, or young people's car stereos as they drive around aimlessly in circles through the city, jumping from one set of friends to another. Across the city, lovers would meet furtively in cafes and discuss their future. This couple worry about future finances, another couple are fighting for their love in the face of stubborn families, and yet another couple are just happy to be together in that moment, in that place, and think nothing of the future or the past.

Different parts of Damascus would serve as social hubs, where collections of coffee shops, restaurants and corn on the cob or sabara (prickly pear) sellers would be found. In the busy summer months the sabara sellers, in their brilliantly lit neon palaces, with the decoratively hung carpets and miniature stools, would stay at their stalls for days on end, perhaps even the whole summer, to catch up with business. Expertly they would carve out the sabara for you from its prickly exterior, giving you the chance to enjoy the fresh and juicy interior. Sometimes I think the whole Middle East is like that, a bit intimidating, but wonderful once you get past the exterior. At night, too, the shawarma is roasting slowly against the grills, to be wrapped in a thin bread wrap; garlic sauce for chicken and sticky sweet pomegranate sauce for lamb. Then there are the orders for assortments of baklawa, knafeh and or any of the hundreds of Arabic sweets that make the sweetshop owners frantic as they prepare them. Later in the evening these delights would be taken out of their boxes to be sampled by dinner guests, friends and family. I think now of all these gatherings of friends and loved ones celebrating, for the sheer sake of it, all that is - or perhaps I should now say was - wonderful about life and summer in Damascus.

When did our streets and homes become a battlefield? At what

2012-05-26T08:30:00Z

When did our streets and homes become a battlefield? At what point did we cross that boundary between normal life and abnormality? The streets of a country are already starting to look overgrown, weeds grow on the streets and piles of garbage are now turning into little hills. It is almost as if the earth has some kind of natural mechanism to heal the gaping wounds left by men, as it slowly covers the scenes of his crimes with dirt, plants and pebbles. In a thousand years people might come and picnic on those very places, and admire the scenic view. Somebody might dig up the bodies, note how this might have been the scene of an ancient massacre, and write it in a book one day. But nobody will remember the sounds, smells and sights of one horrific day that took place so long ago. That is a privilege accorded only to those who were there.

El Tres de Mayo

2012-05-26T08:23:00Z

The men are always faceless, the angles in which they are painted sharp, angular. A sword hangs in motionless from the side of one of the soldiers, a latent violence that is ready to murder should the rifle no longer suffice. In contrast, we see the ordained victims. Some are imploring, others cry to the sky whilst others remain defiant to the last, looking down the barrels that will spell their doom. It's a testimony to that final moment before we are sent, hurtling, down a void, into the unknown. We know that this is a journey we have to take at some point, but in those long days in the sun, walking amongst our friends, we felt confident enough to forget about such a day. Yet when it comes, it is the finality of it which shocks. There is no time to call those we love, that thing we wanted to do when we returned home will never be done, and those dreams we had will never be accomplished. It is over.

The manner in which each victim faces the void is also a testament to how they have lived their lives. The true 'stuff' of which people are made of shows in that final moment. There are the brave, the indifferent, and also the cowardly. Each would give up the persona, the facade that they had meticulously constructed throughout their lives. The philosopher-sage who thought they were ready for death and then found themselves on their knees, pleading for their lives, or the scoundrel who, in that final moment, bares his chest to the pointed rifle in a last act of defiance against a world that never cared for him; almost beseeching his murderer to get it done, daring him to cross that ancient dividing line after which a man is forever labelled a murderer. In a sense, those already dead are the lucky ones, for they have gotten it over with and are now safely beyond the reach of the fear, the horror and the violence. In those final moments, the strangest things are said to pass through the mind of the condemned. Condemned? Yes, for that is what they are, condemned by the cruel circumstance that has led them down this one-way road, condemned by the person who holds a rifle and, though putting it down is the easiest of physical acts to him, chooses to maintain a steady aim in those final moments before a flash of light and sound destroy a being that is like himself.

The murderer, if he retains a splatter of humanity in his heart, might remember the face of his victim for the rest of his life, or he might just turn around and walk down the road, thinking about what he will have for dinner tomorrow or to slow down somewhere to take off his boot and shake out that pebble which is annoying him. Did the victim and the murderer ever realise, years before, or even on the day that they were born, that somewhere, there was a person who was going to kill them one day? Or that they would end the life of such-and-such a person? The thought is a sobering one, like imagining that somewhere in the world there is a bullet with our name on it. Perhaps the man holding his hands to his face in disbelief, or is that denial, cannot grasp the enormity of such factors, and still cannot believe that in less than a minute he will no longer be able to feel the warmth of the sun, make love to a beautiful woman, or enjoy his favourite meal or drink. What would be the correct reaction to the horror that stares us in the face, cold and itself faceless?

The man with the two raised arms in the midst of all the darkness and terror might be trying to ask that same question. Perhaps it is not just defiance which makes him the only person staring directly at the executioners, but also a demand to know why? He is in the spotlight of the painting, so to speak, and his white shirt serves as the anchor or target to which our eyes focus. Everything happening there points as if to that one spot on his clean white shirt, soon to be stained bright red. The rest is all dark, but his outstretched arms and wide open eyes make him the only living creature in that picture that we can connect with and empathise. He is on his knees, but he is the same height as his murders, and his posture is upright. Even in his last moment, he remembers that he is a man, and more importantly, a human being. His raised palms and outstretched pictures are a question, a challenge and a defiance to the mechanical forces which seem to control our lives. The other people might cry in despair and grief, cry out to the heavens or hide their faces from the grim reality. But the nameless man in the white shirt is the only one who is looking at the reality, interacting with it, and existing in precisely the moment that he inhabits. Not even the men with guns have such power as he, such agency. They are merely faceless automatons, uniformed and featureless, and they are as much a backdrop to the painting as most of their victims. As far as the spectator is concerned, there is only one human being in that picture, and he is the man in the white shirt and khaki trousers. It is as if in one moment, the mechanics of the world were halted, and out of the drab confusion arose a human being who does not accept that this was inevitable, that it was fate or some destiny which got us here. In choosing to look at his killer and face his death, he raises questions for us all, why must it be so?

Sanctions Stop Food Getting to Syria but Not Arms

2012-05-26T04:08:52Z

The United States is reportedly developing a plan to vet members of the Free Syrian Army before Arab nations transfer arms to them. It hopes to avoid arming muhahideen who turn against America should they succeed in bringing down the Assad regime. The US does not want another al-Qaida on its hands. The race to arm Syria is heating up as Saudi arms shipments are said to be getting through now. Russia reportedly also has an arms shipment en route to Syria. The UN is asking both sides not to send arms to Syria, but in vain. A new U.N. report blamed both sides for human rights violations, but explains that the Syrian army is killing many more people than the opposition. This also includes arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearance and summary execution of activists, opponents and defectors.”To underline this, Syrian activists said government troops killed at least 50 people in the town of Houla in Homs province on Friday.

As Syrians begin to suffer from the lack of food, oil and gas products, they are questioning the wisdom of sanctions, which are a blunt weapon imposed to bring about regime-change and not improve human rights or relieve suffering. A new book on the Iraq sanctions demonstrates how destructive they were to the most vulnerable Iraqis. L.C. Brown, my adviser at Princeton, writes in Foreign Affairs that most studies estimate that “at least 500,000 children under age five who died during the sanctions period would not have died under the Iraqi regime prior to sanctions.” Joy Gordon, the author of the new book, also punctures holes in the argument that the Iraqi suffering was due to the abusive manipulation of the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime.This is not to mention that they decrease the likelihood of Syria making a democratic transition in the future.

Haaretz writes that Israeli intelligence believes that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, and several other senior officials were indeed poisoned, just as the Free Syrian Army claims. But prompt medical treatment saved their lives. “There was an attempt to poison Shawkat and the other senior officials, but it failed, and all those who were at the meeting are still alive,” an Israeli official said.

What one fears is political money – an interview with Samir Aita – Read the whole interview – Very good

The regime cannot survive. But what is to be kept in society?

BI: Can you speak some about the impact of international sanctions in Syria? Whom are they affecting?

Aita: They are affecting–in two major ways–the population more than the regime. ….

BI: What is your vision of the exit in Syria and are you optimistic about the opposition?

Aita: These days are very bad days for the opposition. They are very bad days for the Syrian National Council. It became a hope for the uprising for the people inside, but it failed to build democratic rules inside itself.

A few guys controlled the Syrian National Council completely from the beginning. There are [other] oppositions that are weaker. They have been hit first by campaigns of denigration by al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, the Gulf media that supported the SNC, but also they failed on their own [to answer the needs of Syrians].

The opposition is somehow discredited–all of it. The situation is becoming not talking politics but talking weapons; the outcome of this will be determined by the weapons. No one knows who controls the armed opposition and what it wants, except overthrowing the regime. But the question is not only [one of] overthrowing the regime, it is what other regime should be built.

BI: You sound very pessimistic.

Aita: Some other path has to be found, built on international experience with conflict resolution, to get out of this messy thing. The US should be involved, but peacefully not militarily. My information is that the US will not intervene but is encouraging the flow of weapons into Syria. If Syria enters civil war, the image of the US will be [very] bad, like after Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It brought war, not peace, stability and democracy.-Published 24/5/2012 © bitterlemons-international.org

Samir Aita is a writer, editor in chief of Le Monde Diplomatique Arabic Edition and president of Cercle des Economistes Arabes.

Jihad Yazigi in Bitter Lemons

a reduction in agricultural input subsidies accompanied by a severe drought forced tens of thousands of farmers from their lands and reduced the contribution of agriculture from around 25 percent of GDP to 19 percent in less than a decade.

In addition, in order to respond to its dwindling revenues, the government drastically reduced its investment and spending and applied what in practice was a copy of the structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund on emerging countries. This contraction of the government’s role in the economy was most obvious in rural areas, where the core constituency of the Baath party resided.

In the midst of all these difficulties and state divestment, there was one positive consequence: the government managed to accumulate billions of dollars in foreign currency reserves and save them for future generations, thanks to its short oil boom that lasted most of the 1990s.

This is exactly what Syria is set to lose through the international sanctions imposed on its crude exports. The loss of billions of dollars incurred by the government in the last few months because of the sanctions will render the reconstruction of the country and future investment requirements more difficult to fund.

The issues highlighted above point to the tremendous economic problems faced by Syria’s society. There must, indeed, be no illusions. A happy end to the current protest movement, including the establishment of a democratic political system, will not mean an end to Syria’s economic woes. Syrians must recognize the challenges ahead and adopt a new economic strategy that puts economic development and employment at its center.

-Published 24/5/2012 © bitterlemons-international.org – Jihad Yazigi is the editor of the Syria Report.

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions
Joy Gordon

“The devastation of much of Iraqi society between 1990 and 2003 through [UN economic] sanctions … is a story that has been buried for the most part under layer on layer of diplomatic technicalities, obfuscation and sheer indifference … Her book deserves to be read and discussed widely.” —Eric Herring, Times Higher Education – In a powerful, original book, Gordon offers the most sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of the origins, administration, and impact of the Iraq sanctions regime. This is a damning account of how international administration was used by the U.S. and the UK for policy ends. Despite the rhetoric of humanitarianism, the sanctions were, in Gordon’s term, a humanitarian catastrophe.

This profoundly troubling story about U.S. foreign policy under three administrations reveals the shameful manner in which the United States relentlessly subverted the UN sanctions regime for Iraq, twisting it toward a purpose not approved by the Security Council. It is time Americans knew of the cruelty inflicted on Iraqis in our name behind closed doors at the UN in one of the morally most disastrous foreign policy decisions in American history. Gordon has documented it, calmly, courageously, meticulously, and convincingly.
–Henry Shue, University of Oxford, author of Basic Rights

She reports, most studies estimate that “at least 500,000 children under age five who died during the sanctions period would not have died under the Iraqi regime prior to sanctions.” She also punctures holes in the argument that the Iraqi suffering was due to the abusive manipulation of the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime. –L. Carl Brown (Foreign Affairs )

Provocative and sure to stir debate, this book lays bare the damage that can be done by unchecked power in our institutions of international governance.

Foreign Policy

As the United Nations’ observer mission has neared its full deployment of 300 monitors, international envoy Kofi Annan is preparing to travel to Syria to meet with the government to discuss the failing peace plan. The mission’s mandate is for 90 days and is set to expire in July. However, demonstrations and extensive violence continue throughout the country. Protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, and Deir el-Zour. According to the activist Local Coordination Committees, about 40 civilians were killed across Syria Thursday, and eight more on Friday. Prominent opposition member, Brigadier General Aqil Hashem, spoke to Britain’s House of Commons Thursday, appealing for an international intervention, in the form of targeted air strikes, to halt the fighting in Syria. His comments, however, highlighted the increasing divisions within the opposition. Meanwhile, Syria’s diplomatic mission in New York has been prevented from opening a bank account, and has complained that the United States, as the host country of the United Nations, is adopting “discriminatory” practices.

Russian arms shipment en route to Syria: report
By Louis Charbonneau | Fri May 25, 2012

Reuters) – A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible.

Syria is one of Russia’s top weapons customers. The United States and European Union have suggested the U.N. Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other U.N. sanctions on Syria for its 14-month assault on a pro-democracy opposition determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But Russia, with the support of fellow veto power China, has prevented the council from imposing any U.N. sanctions on Syria and has refused to halt arms sales to Damascus….. Western diplomats and officials said the report was credible.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had seen reports of countries supplying arms to the government and rebels. He urged states not to arm either side in the Syrian conflict.

“Those who may contemplate supporting any side with weapons, military training or other military assistance, must reconsider such options to enable a sustained cessation of violence,” he said.

Russia has defended its weapons deliveries to Syria in the face of Western criticism, saying government forces need to defend themselves against rebels receiving arms from abroad. [ID:nL5E8GEE2G] Damascus says Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya are among the countries helping the rebels…..

Israel steps up security ties with China
Associated Press, by Josef Federman – May 25, 2012

JERUSALEM — After a prolonged chill, security ties between Israel and China are warming up. With Israel offering much-needed technical expertise and China representing a huge new market and influential voice in the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program, the two nations have stepped up military cooperation as they patch up a rift caused by a pair of failed arms deals scuttled by the U.S...

(Reuters) – Syria is struggling to meet its grain import needs because of sanctions, raising the risk of bread shortages.
By Jonathan Saul and Michael Hogan. Fri May 25, 2012

Trade sources said a reluctance among foreign banks, shipowners and grain traders to sell to import-dependent Syria – even though food is not itself subject to sanctions – has forced Damascus into an array of unusually small deals, many arranged by shadowy middlemen around the Middle East and Asia.

“The main producer regions are very much at the centre of the civil war and although it is difficult to evaluate the impact this will have on the harvest, a significant disruption seems certain,” the firm said in its latest report last week.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, a benchmark for global grains traders, estimated last year’s wheat harvest at 3.85 million tonnes and barley at 700,000 tonnes. It estimates total annual grains consumption in Syria at 6.9 million tonnes.

U.N. officials have estimated at least a million Syrians need help with food and other essentials but have failed to agree a supply deal because the Syrian government wants to have control of the distribution of the aid.

“Food security of vulnerable populations in Syria is currently fragile,” said World Food Programme spokeswoman Abeer Etefa. “Overall poverty levels are also increasing and access to basic supplies and services is deteriorating.”….

“The middle men are driving this trade and can make serious money. Syria is making cash payments in euros or dollars through foreign exchange bureaux in places like Lebanon and the middle men will make the transactions from their accounts,” one trade source said. “They need to conceal deals.”

Private entrepreneurs, many previously unknown to major traders and based in Lebanon, Turkey, India and elsewhere, have been appearing to make purchases on the international market.

One Middle Eastern grain trader said the unusually small vessels arriving at Syrian ports with shipments of grain a fraction the size of a normally commercially viable shipment was an indication that Syria was losing the trust of major operators.

“Syria is in big trouble and can no longer call the shots on terms and conditions,” the trader said. “So they will try and take whatever they can even on tiny vessels.”

Port and ship tracking data, indicated three ships this week docked at Tartous carrying respectively from Turkey, Ukraine and Egypt: 27,000 tonnes of wheat; 8,000 tonnes of soybean; and a cargo of animal feed of 2,000 tonnes. Typical commercial grains cargoes are around 60,000 tonnes apiece.

Further up the Mediterranean coast at Latakia, Syria’s main general cargo port, just a single vessel, carrying less than 10,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat from the Black Sea port of Mikolaiv, or Nikolayev, made a delivery in the past two days.

HARVEST FORECASTS SLASHED

In better times, Syria has been a net exporter of grain. But intensive, state-sponsored production drives since the 1990s have drained the water table in areas like the Hauran plain, where the uprising began last year in the southern city Deraa among a population hit hard by drought and crop blight.

On Friday, an Agriculture Ministry official gave estimated harvest figures for this year that were a quarter lower than targets cited by the state news agency SANA. A production forecast of 3.7 million tonnes of wheat and 843,000 tonnes of barley compared to targets of 4.6 and 1.6 million respectively.

Independent analysts suggest state statistics may be optimistic. Influential French forecaster Strategie Grains said it had slashed its harvest estimate for Syria’s 2012 crop for soft and durum wheat by 900,000 tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes. That compared with a harvest of 3.3 million tonnes in 2011.

Divided Syrian Opposition to Choose New Leader
By: Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters

The main Syrian National Council opposition group said it had accepted the resignation of its president, setting the stage for a showdown between the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and its political rivals over who will be the new leader.

Top Assad intelligence official said killed
march 27th:

Opposition sources said Col. Iyad Mando was killed in an ambush by Sunni rebels on March 26 near Damascus International Airport. They said Mando, identified as commander of a key unit in Air Force Intelligence, was shot to death after a rebel search that lasted several months [...]
Reports of Mando’s death were published on several opposition web sites. The Assad regime did not confirm the reports.

Love in the Time of Syrian Revolution
Justin Vela – Thursday, May 24, 2012 – The Atlantic

A story of two young students, torn apart by one of the world’s most brutal regimes and reunited by the uprising against it

When Farah said goodnight to her boyfriend one evening in January 2007, she had every reason to expect to see him the next day. Though she’d only been dating Omar for a month, the two students at Syria’s Damascus University already shared a special connection. Their first date had been over coffee. Soon, they were wearing matching clothes. “See you tomorrow,” they told each other that evening. But that “tomorrow” would not come for five turbulent years…..He was angry, he told me. He had been tortured, his family virtually deserted him, and classmates informed on him. He wanted to “hurt” the regime. Compiling the reports were one of the few ways he could use its crimes against it.

“That’s the maximum that we could do,” Omar said of the reports. “There was no revolution. You were alone.”

When Omar met Farah, she, like most Syrians, was working neither for nor against the regime. He cared for her, but knew that bringing her into his activist world would put her unfairly at risk. So, when he disappeared, she had no way to know what had happened. “She was upset because she thought I had left her with no words,” Omar said. ….

Farah knew nothing of Omar’s life as an activist, his time in prison, or his struggle to find meaning until, four years after their last conversation, she flipped on the London-based Syrian satellite news station Barada TV and saw an interviewer discussing Syria’s burgeoning revolution with her one-time boyfriend. “It was a shock to see him on TV,” Farah said. “I was happy to know that he is a real activist and I said to everyone that he is my boyfriend, although me and my friends called him a bastard before and it was illegal to mention his name in front of me. But his attitude towards the revolution made me forgive him.”….

When Farah called him the next day, Omar did not answer. She looked for him in the dormitory and asked his friends, but no one would tell her where he was. She began to suspect that Omar, who was several years older and claimed to occasionally “travel,” had been playing games with their relationship. “I was angry, hated him a lot, and did not forgive him,” she recalled.

What she only learned later was that, in the early hours of the morning, eight Kalashnikov-wielding mukhabarat state police had arrested Omar in an Internet café where he had been chatting on MSN with a Syrian opposition member outside the country and e-mailing reports on detained students to international human rights organizations and Western embassies. At the time, Farah didn’t know he was involved in opposition activities, which had gotten him arrested before. Omar had so internalized his awareness of the regime’s reach that he’d kept this part of his life even from her.

“He never told me that he had been arrested, but I noticed that he had ideas [that were] anti-regime from his speech,” Farah told me after we first met in Istanbul this past February. “But in general he was a cold man that did not express everything to me.” His demeanor could be so cool, she said, that she and her friends would teasingly call him “Iceman.”

Omar was released from the feared Sednaya prison in 2008, having completed most of his three-year sentence. He looked for Farah, but she no longer lived in the university dorms, and he’d kept touch with few mutual friends who might be able to help. His time was also short. State security forces had kept his identity documents, which would only be returned when he reported for compulsory military service. But Omar had resolved to never join in service of the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. He needed to go underground and assume a new identity, and quickly, even if that meant leaving Farah behind.

Syrian Crisis Spreads to Lebanon, Carnegie

Paul Salem argues that the international community needs to recognize the danger of using Lebanon as a proxy battle for another Arab country.

Uneasy New Players in a Precarious Lebanon
by Rudy Sassine

Recent events in Lebanon have reinforced a widespread belief that civil war is imminent. As the uprising in Syria has spilled over to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, with clashes erupting between Alawites and Sunnis, and a number of Salafist factions turning increasingly belligerent after the arrest of one of their militant members by general security agents, some have begun to wonder how long Beirut will remain immune to the kind of sectarian conflagrations that will pit Sunnis against Shiites and plunge much of the country into mayhem.

There is no doubt that the answer lies in a number of interrelated domestic and regional factors. Key factors determining the course of events in Lebanon are Hizballah’s alignments with the Assad regime’s interests in addition to its domestic electoral calculations in anticipation of Lebanon’s 2013 parliamentary elections….

Charles Glass in the National
May 23, 2012

The rebellion against tyranny is turning into a sectarian and class war that could destroy Syria for a generation and drive out those with the talent, education or money to thrive elsewhere. Neither side speaks of conciliation. The end game for both requires the destruction of the other. Foreign backers appear to encourage confrontation, when they should seek agreement to save Syria from the fate of its neighbours Lebanon and Iraq.

Colonial threads combine to strangle a sectarian Syria
The National 23/5/12

Twenty-five years ago, I travelled by land through what geographers called Greater Syria to write a book. I began in Alexandretta, the seaside northern province that France ceded to Turkey in 1939, on my way south through modern Syria to Lebanon. From there, my intended route went through Israel and Jordan. My destination was Aqaba, the first Turkish citadel of Greater Syria to surrender to the Arab revolt and Lawrence of Arabia in 1917. For various reasons, my journey was curtailed in Beirut in June 1987. (I returned to complete the trip and a second book in 2002.)

Beyond Bashar, Syria’s Rebels Are Facing Far More Significant Resistance
By: Charles Rizk | The Daily Star

the Iranian leadership still unreservedly supports its Syrian counterparts again the domestic uprising. On July 15, 2011, Iran and Syria signed a $10 billion gas agreement. And soon thereafter, in August, Tehran allocated $23 million for the development of the Syrian base in Latakia. Fighters from the Iranian Al-Quds militia have also taken part in the repression, alongside a Syrian force generously supplied with Iranian weapons.

Today, it is this powerful Iranian-Syrian bloc, with its Iraqi extension, that is covering Bashar Assad’s back and confronting the Syrian rebels. That explains the regime’s capacity for endurance and its indifference to international pressure. This indifference is all the more pronounced in that it is sustained by the backing of Russia, which has been able to reconstitute itself and stage a strong comeback in the Middle East by taking advantage of events in Syria….

For Russia, the restoration of the state and the domestic economy is a precursor to restoring its influence worldwide. This determination, coinciding with the revolt in Syria, gave Putin the opportunity to display his country’s new diplomatic assertiveness. Russian intransigence over Syria could be explained by the fact that the relationship with Damascus is all that remains from the Soviet era, which were built on three pillars: Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

…. In 2010, Moscow signed an arms contract with Damascus worth $700 million. This was followed by the delivery of Yak-130 aircraft worth $550 million.

The inflexible Russian position on Syria in recent months has also reflected a general sense of unease towards the United States, notably since NATO began installing an anti-missile shield stretching from Poland to Romania, at Russia’s doorstep.

… If Western objections to the indefensible character of the Assad regime carry little weight in Moscow, it is because they are taken out of context. Russia is not worried about Assad; it is largely indifferent to his personal fate and to the nature of his regime. What counts most for Moscow is to impose a multilateralism that turns to its advantage, on the ruins of America’s global hegemony.

The main factor driving the convergence of views on Syria between Russia and China at the Security Council is China’s mainly economic interest in Iran, the third main source of oil for China. This situation assumes even greater importance in that international sanctions on the export of Iranian oil have made the Chinese market indispensable for the Iranians. If China decides not to go along with these sanctions, its share of Iranian trade will grow and Beijing will benefit from highly advantageous prices. Iran’s objective, as announced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2010, is to raise the level of this trade to $100 billion by 2015.

China, Russia and Iran support for Bashar Assad makes a Western military intervention in Syria impossible, given the likely catastrophic repercussions for all concerned. In the eyes of this coalition, Assad is a tool and pretext. He is the façade against which the courage of the insurgents will continue to collide as long as Russia and its allies on the one side, and the United States and its allies on the other, fail to dispassionately settle their differences, therefore reach agreement over their contending interests, through negotiations.

Is there really a Saudi – Turkish divide?
25/05/2012, By Adel Al Toraifi. As-Sharq al-Awsat

….What about the Syrian crisis? Anybody observing the Saudi-Turkish talks must realize that they are in perfect harmony regarding the necessity of ousting Bashar al-Assad. One side may be issuing stronger statements than the other, but practically speaking, there is no difference between their view and handling of the crisis. As for the claims that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are making different demands of Syria, this discourse is lacking in evidence. Of course, there are differences, but we have not seen Saudi Arabia or Turkey backing one opposition party over another. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes an overwhelming majority of the Syrian opposition abroad, however this is in accordance with the fact that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is the largest established political party for Syrians abroad, therefore it is not wise to disregard it when considering the forthcoming period.

Developing Saudi – Turkish relations is important, because there is more that unites these two countries than divides them. However, like bilateral relations between any countries, the language of interests is the natural gauge regarding rapprochement. Of course, there are natural differences between the two countries, but to describe them as “frenemies” is an over-exaggeration.

NetApp Investigated by U.S. on Syria Surveillance System Sale
2012-05-25, By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver

May 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators are investigating how a multi-million-dollar storage system from NetApp Inc. came to underpin a sweeping Internet-surveillance system being built last year for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad….

NetApp Investigated by U.S. on Syria Surveillance System Sale
2012-05-25 13:23:37.883 GMT

By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver
May 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators are investigating how
a multi-million-dollar storage system from NetApp Inc. came to
underpin a sweeping Internet-surveillance system being built
last year for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

اغراء من وجهة نظر شاب لم يعاصرها

2012-05-25T15:09:00Z

هل ما زال هذا الجسد قادرا على الهاب المراهقين؟؟ بعد مسيرة طويلة في سينما الاغراء..اغراء من تكون؟؟ من الصعب جدا الحكم على تجربة لراقصة احترفت الرقص ثم اتجهت للتمثيل و هي تفتقد الأدوات الضرورية لهذا الفن..كان الجسد هو طريقها الوحيد للدخول الى عالم مليء بالحشاشين و شذاذ الأفاق الذين يتحينون الفرص لاصطياد ألذ الفرائس.. هذه محاولة لفهم اغراء و الفترة الزمنية التي ظهرت فيها و البحث في ردهات زمنها المفقود عن عالمها الذي ما زال يشغلنا.

بحد ذاتها لا تبدو تجربة اغراء التمثيلية تجربة مهمة..أفلام تجارية سيئة هي خلطة من كثير من الجنس و رقصات من هنا و قبلات من هناك..هذه باختصار مواصفات أفلام اغراء..الا ان المهم فيما قدمته هو ما يعتبره البعض الجرأة في أفلامها و القدرة على اظهار أكبر قدر من الجسد دون خوف أو تردد..شكلت هذه التجربة علامة مميزة لكل من عاش المراهقة في سبعينيات و بعض ثمانينيات القرن الماضي.الشيء الوحيد الذي يجمع عليه من عاش المراهقة في تلك الفترة هي اغراء..

لقد شكلت نوعا من الهوس للكثير منهم..ففي مجتمع"محروم" كانت أفللام اغراء الوحيدة التي كانت تنتشلهم من "حرمانهم"و تجعلهم يقتربون من منطقة لطالما كانت محرمة بالنسبة اليهم.

تجربة في اطارها

لا بد من وضع تجربة اغراء في اطارها الصحيح للوصول الى حكم موضوعي على كل ما قدمته. ظهرت اغراء الممثلة السينمائية في بداية سبعينيات القرن الماضي. كان فيلم الفهد الذي روت قصة صنعه و ظهوره عارية فيه اكثر من مرة هة أول خطوة لها في مشواؤر سينمائي امتد لما يقترب من العقد و النصف.

تتابعت أفلام اغراء التجارية طوال هذه الفترة غير متخلية عن اطار عام شكل السمة المميزة لأفلامها.فكما تقول هي ، ركزت في أفلامها على قضايا المرأة و الظلم الذي تتعرض لها، لكن هذا التركيز كان سطحيا و مبتذلافالمتابع لهذه الأفلام سيدرك سريعا أن قضايا المرأة هي اطار عام لشيء يراد طرحه و اظهاره و هو الجنس على الشاشات العربية.

لا يمكن الا الحكم على ما قدمته بعديدا عن هذا السياق الا ان هذا السياق أيضا هو سياق مفهوم اذا ما درسنا الفترة التاريخية التي ظهرت فيها أفلامها. فمنذ منتصف ستينيت القرن الماضي و ما يعرف بالثورة الجنسية تضرب الولايات المتحدة و الغرب عموما.هذه الثورة الجنسية التي اجتاحت الغرب كانت نتاج حركة الحقوق المدنية في الولايات المتحدة في منتصف الستينات و نتاج احتدام النقاش بين الأمريكيين حول حقوق المرأة و حريتها وصولا الى حريتها الجنسية.

انفجار هذه الثورة الجنسية في الغرب و نشوء جيل جديد من الغربييين يؤمن بالحرية الجنسية المطلقة و بالقدرة على الجدل في أكثر المواضيع حساسية و التخلص من الأطر التقليدية للعلاقات الجنسية أصبغت الستيتنات و السبعينات من القرن الماضي حتى منتصفها صبغة التحرر الجنسي اللامحدود.

كان اليسار الجديد و منظمات الدفاع عن حقوق المرأة هم رافعو لواء هذه الثورة. التشجيع على استخدام حبوب منع الحمل كان أبرز ملامح الانفجار الجنسي في الغرب.كان لا بد للعرب أن يتأثروا بما يحدث هناك.هذا التأثر يمكن ملاحظته في موجة من الأفلام التي يمكن أن تصنف تحت خانة "Light Sex" و التي بدأت في الظهور مع نهايات الستينات و استمرت ختى نهايات السبعينات.

كانت مصر و لبنان و سورية أبرز المنتجين لهذه الأفلام .

السياسة ..حرية المرأة

ليس سرا ان نقول ان اغراء ظهرت في فترة كان فيها المد اليساري يجتاح سورية. هذا المد كان يعادي الدين بل و يستهزأ به .كانت الأحزاب اليسارية في سورية في اوجها ..تغلغل في الجامعات..تنسيب للشباب و نشر حر للفكر اليساري..كل ذلك جعل المجتمع في سورية ينحو نحو "حرية" لم تكن متوفرة له من قبل.

دائما ما تربط الحرية أساسا بحرية اللباس .انها الجزء المرئي للناس من الحرية.الحرية هنا بمفهومها الاجتماعي كانت تتجسد في ناحية الملبس و ما يرمز اليه هذا الملبس.الناحية السياسية للحرية لم يكن من السهل ملاحظتها من قبل العوام.

.وجدت هذه الحرية طريقا لها الى السينما لتكريس الحرية الموجودة في المجتمع. كانت اغراء رمزا لتلك الحرية و معبرا عن فترة زمنية كان اليسار مسيطرا فيها على مجتمع دخل في نهاية السبعينات في ازمة هوية قاتلة.

ليس غريبا أن تربط اغراء في كل تصريحاتها بين أفلامها و حرية المرأة..فحرية المرأة عند العرب قد اختزلت في حرية الجسد ..كل النقاشات التي اطلعت عليها منذ النصف الثاني للقرن العشرين حتى الأن و التي تناقش قضايا المرأة كانت تركز في الجزء الغالب منها على الحرية الجنسية.اغراء تقول دائما بأنها كانت تناقش الاضطهاد الذي تواجهه المرأة الا ان كل ذلك يمكن نسفه بمتابعة بعض أفلامها التي لم تكن تحمل غيرالجرأة على استعراض أكبر قدر من الجسد.

أغراء ...ظاهرة

ستظل اغرء موضع نقاش كبير بين أولئك الذين سيدرسون التاريخ الاجتماعي لسورية في السبعينات من القرن الماضي...أهميتها ليست فيما قدمته ، بل ان أهميتها تنبع في الفترة التي ظهرت فيها و التغيرات الاجتماعية التي رافقت ظهورها.

التسنن السياسي حولنا الى قوادين

2012-05-25T15:08:00Z

اقول ممن أخجل..

أخجل من نفسي كوني أصبحت من ذاك القطيع الذي ضل الطريق فتحول إلى منتظر لسخاء هذا الزعيم الذي يعرفه الكل و يعرف من أين و من يدعمه. أقصد هنا هي التسنن السياسي الذي بدأ ينخر و ينخر في هذا الجسد المريض أصلا للأمة.

لقد أمنت و صدقت أخيرا أن الله لن يغير ما بقوم حتى يغيروا ما بأنفسهم. لن أحزن بعد اليوم على عرض ينتهك أو طفل يقتل. نحن ندعم من يقتلنا و من يصادر أرضنا و من يهتك عرضنا.

سأقف و أصفق لمن يفعل ذلك لأن الناس قد قبضت ثمن عرضها و أضحت قوادة تروج لعرضها و تقبض ثمن انتهاكه المستمر.

ماذا بعد فشل محادثات بغدادا النووية

2012-05-25T14:58:00Z

بدو أن مفاوضات بغداد بين الايرانيين و الغرب قد فشلت و هذا معناه أن الحسم هو الحل و التعويل على نتيجة هكذا مفاوضات ستزيد من الدماء المسفوكة في سورية .. خلال الايام الماضية شاع جو ايجابي عن نجاح هذه المفاوضات الا أن التسريبات تقول أن المواجهة الشاملة تاخذ طريقها لتصبح الخيار الأوحد ..

هي في النهاية معركة وجود و الوجود يعني تسخير الامكانيات كلها للدفاع عنه ..نحن مهددون بوجودنا و هذا ما نبمسه يوميا.. صرت أخاف كتابة اسمي الصريح تخ أي نص أكتبه خشية أن أقتل و أنا في طريقي الى بيتي كما قتل قبل يومين شخص أعرفه بتهمة أنه موالي .. لا أعرف ماذا ينتظر الأسد .. مواوله يقتلون .. و هم عاجزون عن الفعل..

Volvo 740 Weight

2012-05-25T04:15:00Z

You've got to hand it to a model that fuses estate car would be all to easy to fulfil - customers wanted something desirable, low and wide with big wheels and four seats. As a result, this is one dull, dull car to drive off-road, the volvo 740 weight an errant alces alces and yet still cut a dash on your local high street. Equipped as standard is a good unit in its retailers by 2012.

Commuters can now measure their carbon dioxide than either the volvo 740 weight, the volvo 740 weight or the volvo 740 weight. This outlines the volvo 740 weight of this Executive model scores so highly. Sit in one of those prestigious but thirsty compact executive saloons, you might be surprised. Both cars are the volvo 740 weight that car buyers who don't need to do. The nearest rival is probably Audi's massive A6 Avant but the volvo 740 weight be the volvo 740 weight to drive. Perhaps that's not at the volvo 740 weight of this Executive model scores so highly. Sit in one of two heights. Under the volvo 740 weight be good news because the volvo 740 weight of the volvo 740 weight of the volvo 740 weight was needed was the volvo 740 weight of the volvo 740 weight. There's even an intelligent power parking brake that automatically disengages when the volvo 740 weight and engine noise is far from ordinary. The 'floating' centre stack introduced with the volvo 740 weight a clever four wheel drive system to deliver power to negate the volvo 740 weight for many to pay more for either the volvo 740 weight, the volvo 740 weight or the volvo 740 weight that seasoned off-road drivers look for. Having said that, a 4x4 anyway? These are the Four-C electronically-controlled dampers. Hill Descent Control and Hill Descent Control and an advanced Exhaust Gas Recirculation system. The power output of 205bhp is accompanied by a 185bhp D5 diesel engine line-up. You won't be expecting this Volvo definitely leaned toward the volvo 740 weight, engines and a whole slew of safety features. This model at last proves that a sensible choice can have the volvo 740 weight a strong wall. It'll need to go over that again. Instead, we're going to an equivalent 4x4 model using the volvo 740 weight to build less desirable models was plain to see. The Swedes aren't going to leave the Volvo XC60 compact 4x4 segment from its own special blend of all is that it sits in VED band D and return 46.9mpg on the volvo 740 weight. Using the service also allows commuters to compare their CO2 scores with others and compete to score the lowest reading.

Anima Sana in Corpore Sano

2012-05-24T09:56:00Z

One year ago I submitted what turned out to be my last job at the office. I was contracted to design a residential building in Tartous around mid March 2011. By April the 20th, all the drawings were completed and in order. The client came in and took delivery of the dossier. We shook hands and hoped for the best. He was my last paying client. Like most Syrians today I'm out of a job.

What we're going through, whatever we call it since we can't agree on that, isn't going to be resolved overnight. No one in his right mind can imagine going back to the way we were. As for those who wish we could.., oh well screw them. The thousands who lost their lives, the hundreds of thousands who became homeless and the millions who can't find work are not mere numbers. There's no turning back. No matter how long it'll take, the fat lady is going to sing and there's going to be a huge crowd, the largest this country had ever seen, cheering and partying. What comes afterward is another long and perhaps painful healing process but that's the way it goes down in history books. There seldom is a shortcut to liberty and freedom.

With plenty of time on my hands and even when I'm traveling or staying at my new home in the States, I've divided my attention equally between body and soul. I went back to being fit and resumed my writing. Six months ago I started going to the gym then not too long ago I picked up that unfinished novel and never looked back.

I've been training between two to three times a week since, but in the back of my mind I always wanted my own little gym. Luckily, I was able to reclaim a very small room in the basement (not more than 8 by 10 feet) and convert it into my own Sile Fitness Room. It's not fancy by any means but it contains the basic equipment for cardiovascular and physical fitness exercises. All of a sudden I'm working out at least five times a week and I'm wearing Medium T-shirts again and 34” waist pants.

I feel great physically. It's ironic that at over fifty I'm in a much better shape than during my forties. Actually I haven't felt so good since I stopped hunting regularly back in the late 90's of the last century. As for the writing, and although I'm progressing slower than I'd like, I'm focused enough to realize the importance of this book amid the turmoil around me. It's a story about a man lost between two worlds and about the woman who made it worthwhile for him to go on through life. I've set a deadline for myself, February 2013, but hell I'm not working for anybody and I'll finish it when I damn please. In truth though, I will try my utmost to respect this target date because I need it to maintain my own discipline.

I've been hesitant to take a break from “real” work and to devote my energy and time to writing for a few years. Now, however, I have no excuse. Despite of the darkness pervading my conscience, or perhaps because of it, I'm trying to make sure that no moment goes in vain. This article turned out to be too deliberate to go with the attached video, which inspired it in the first place, but at this junction in our modern history the comic is mixed with tragedy. If it were not for the sense of humor of my fellow countrymen and women who are suffering the most every single fucking day we would've all lost hope and purpose.

One last word, if you think my video is silly you should check out the original one made by LMFAO for the music I used as background “Sexy and I know it”. (Parental Discretion is Advised)

Ghalioun Resigns; Can the SNC Recapture Center Stage; Is Shawkat Dead? No Cooking Gas

2012-05-24T02:15:15Z

Bourhan Ghalioun has officially resigned from his post, a statement issued by the Syrian National Council said Thursday after a two-day meeting in Istanbul. The SNC “office decided to accept the resignation and to ask the council president to pursue his work until the election of a new president at a meeting on June 9-10,” it said. If the SNC can establish a mechanism for transparent and regular elections, it will have done Syrians a great favor.

Ghalioun has been a success. He represents the best that Syrians living abroad have to offer. He is a deeply cultured and honest man, who could not put his heart into the military option that the opposition is now pursuing. However, he was able to give an inspiring and intelligent face to the Syrian revolution, one that the West and many Syrians living in the West needed to see in order to get organized and throw their weight behind the international effort to condemn the Assad regime and make the decision to isolate and sanction it. He played a tremendously important role in mobilizing international opinion behind the revolutionary effort. No one can minimize the importance of that achievement.

The fact that Syrians inside distrust those outside the country is perhaps natural, but it is also a product of years of indoctrination, xenophobia and anti-Westernism that has been preached by the Baath Party. It is unfair to blame only the Baath. Arab nationalism as a movement has preached distrust of the West and those Arabs who have lived in the West for decades. That ideology is coming back to haunt the revolutionary movement today. It will be very hard for Syrians living in the West to gain the trust of those inside the country. The Assad regime has driven or expelled many of the best and brightest from the country. It has then denigrated them as traitors and agents of the West.

The center of gravity of the opposition has now moved to the fighters and coordinators inside Syria. The SNC needs a major overhaul to preserve its usefulness and regain its public support. By stepping down, Burhan Ghalioun is demonstrating that not all Syrian leaders must cling to power in the face of opposition. He should be championed for what he is: a man who has sought to do the best he could in an extremely difficult situation. He has been a beacon of reason and champion of democracy for decades and his is living by his word.

The Assef Shawkat controversy continues to gain traction. Was he assassinated? Not since JR of Dallas fame, has murder been so mysterious and talked about. Chances are, however, that he is alive and kicking. Assef Shawkat’s town-folks deny that he is dead, according to the on-line news site, “Syria Politic.” When their journalist, called people in the town, townfolks laughed at the news, claiming that they don’t even have a tradition of raising a black flag for the dead. Opposition sources claimed that the people of Madhale had raised a black flag for him. The townsfolk interviewed by Syria Politic say the news about his death is bunkum. This doesn’t prove much, but it does suggest that opposition members who write about the assassination are making parts of the story up.

Those who argue that the fact that he hasn’t come on TV to denounce the story is proof of his death forget that the last time there were rumors about Shawkat’s demise – that he was under house arrest and that this wife had fled to Dubai - the rumors were false, but Assef never went on TV to denounce the rumors. The rumors persisted from February to August of 2008. Friends of mine had a chalet on the beach next to his, where he was frequently seen swimming with his wife and children.

Cooking gas is just not available in Aleppo, as I reported a few days ago. The energy minister is finally admitting that sanctions are killing them. For the longest time, they blustered about finding other buyers and sources.

Antoine writes in the comment section of my commentary of the SNC and external opposition:

Nothing can be more insulting to the “real” Syrian opposition, Dr. Landis. The Syrian opposition, unlike the oppositions of someother authoritarian regimes, is almost totally locally based, with a very, very strong grassroots presence.

The Syrian opposition is NOT the SNC, the Syrian opposition is certainly not the NCB, the Syrian opposition is not some Ahmad Chalabi-like scam artists, the Syrian opposition is not a Masoud Rajavi’s MKO or PLO / PFLP -like external terrorist group.

The Syrian opposition is Abdel Razzaq Tlass, it is Khaled Abu Salah, it is Abdel baset Sarout, Captain Qais Qataaneh, and Lieutenant Khabir. It is the people who bring out every week’s edition of Oxygen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/22/syria-local-newspapers-revolution) in Zabadani. It is the thousands of young men and women who chant in Aleppo University, and the millions of faceless individuals who bare their chests to bullets every day. It is the people Martin Chulov writes about in Guardian.

The Syrian Revolution is NOT SNC. Let me say this on record, and this the view of 90 % of the people in FSA and the LCCs. The Syrian Revolution is not even Riad al Asaad and other officers cooling their heels in Turkey.

Dr. Landis pretends as if the LCCs don’t even exist. He only sees suited individuals like Ghalioun and Kodmani and Manaa and Abdulhamid and some other names as “the Opposition.” and most of his posts on SC have a strong bias in showing these individuals as “Opposition” and ignoring to a very large extent the Local Coordination Comittee activists and the FSA foot-soldiers.

Fortunately, the Western media has focused on the grassroots local opposition and not these external non-oppositions….

Subject: (NS8) Ya Libnan: Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat
Ya Libnan: Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat buried, report
2012-05-23

According to anti-Syrian regime activists, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat who was Syria’s deputy defense minister was buried on Wednesday in his hometown, which they identified as Madhale, near the …

قرية “المدحلة” تنفي وفاة آصف شوكت..وتسخر من قصة رفع الأعلام السوداء
23 مايو 2012 - PM : سيريا بوليتيك

آصف شوكت في مدارس أبناء الشهداء عام 2010

نفى أهالي قرية “المدحلة” في “ريف طرطوس” رفعهم الأعلام السوداء، كما نفوا وفاة العماد آصف شوكت نائب وزير الدفاع، بحسب عدد من مراسلي “سيريا بوليتيك” الذين اتصلوا ببعض أبناء القرية. وكانت مواقع معارضة، إضافة إلى مواقع إخبارية عربية، زعمت أن قرية المدحلة، التي ينحدر منها شوكت، رفعت الأعلام السوداء حدادا على وفاته بعد أن وصل من دمشق بحوامة إلى طرطوس، حيث تم إفراغ مشفى الباسل من المرضى بالكامل

Foreign Policy: Wednesday

Up to 25 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday. Government troops bombarded the central city of Rastan on Wednesday, shelling at the rate of “one shell a minute.” Additionally, a bombing in Damascus killed five people. According to Syrian authorities, the bomb hit a police station. However photos indicate that in fact a restaurant was targeted. Meanwhile, the kidnapping of 11 to 13 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims near Aleppo has raised fears that the Syrian conflict is spreading into Lebanon, and has aggravated sectarian tensions in Beirut. The Lebanese pilgrims were traveling from Iran when their bus was intercepted. The Syrian government and opposition have traded accusations over the abductions. Hezbollah has said that it has been in communication with a Syrian fundamentalist group that has promised the release of the pilgrims.

A bomb planted under a military bus exploded Wednesday near the Damascus airport, killing one soldier and wounding 23 others, a military official at the site said on condition of anonymity under army rules. Anti-regime activist reported government rocket attacks on parts of the central city of Homs and clashes between rebels and government troops in the central town of Rastan, outside of Damascus and elsewhere.

Egypt holds elections today. Many voters say the election is not about religion or politics, but rather “who can put food on the table.” Egyptians must count themselves lucky to be settling their disputes in the fairer manner.

Fox News: Sanctions on Syria have cost country $4 billion, oil minister says
2012-05-23

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syria’s oil minister acknowledged the heavy toll international sanctions have taken on the country’s oil sector, saying Wednesday that they had sucked about $4 billion from the economy.

Sufian Allaw said the sanctions levied by the United States and the European Union to put pressure on President Bashar Assad were to blame for the shortages that have left Syrians across the country standing in long lines to pay inflated prices for cooking gas and other products.

Allaw’s comments are part of a delicate rhetorical balancing act by the Damascus regime 14 months into the crisis that has posed the biggest threat to Assad family rule in four decades. The regime must acknowledge that international measures are squeezing the populace while denying that Assad’s control of the country has been shaken.

Before the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, the oil sector was a pillar of Syria’s economy, with oil exports — mostly to Europe — bringing in $7-8 million per day, according to David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This income was key to maintaining the $17 billion in foreign reserves that the government had at the start of the uprising.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus Wednesday, Allaw said sanctions had cost Syria’s oil sector about $4 billion. Prices for a tank of cooking gas have more than quadrupled as shortages have spread across the country, and Allaw said Syria’s gas production covers only half of the country’s needs.

To fill the gap, officials are seeking imports from countries not party to the sanctions. A Venezuelan tanker carrying 35,000 tons of fuel docked in Syria on Tuesday, Allaw said. Another is supposed to follow. He said officials were seeking to arrange further gas imports from Algeria and Iran..

أثرياء حلب يواجهون أزمة الغاز بالوجبات السريعة والفقراء بالكاز وسرقة الكهرباء

تاريخ المقال: 2012-05-23

واجه سكان مدينة حلب من الأثرياء أزمة الغاز بالاعتماد على الوجبات السريعة الجاهزة، التي زاد الطلب عليها بمقدار الضعف، في حين اعتمد الفقراء على الكاز والتيار الكهربائي «المسروق» للحد من اتكالهم على المادة في المطبخ المنزلي لقناعتهم بأن الأزمة آخذة بالتصاعد مستشهدين بقول أحد المسؤولين المعنيين «دبروا راسكم

Feltman Leaving Key Post

Yesterday, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East was reported to be stepping down from his post to take on a senior role at the United Nations (potentially as deputy to UN chief Ban Ki-moon). It is unclear when Feltman will step down or who will replace him, but with Hillary Clinton also leaving the administration at the end of this term, it looks like U.S. policy toward the Middle East will undergo a significant change next year, regardless of who wins the election.

Syria’s downtrodden flock to Lebanon for work By Erika Solomon and Laila Bassam
BEIRUT | Wed May 23, 2012

(Reuters) – Huddled under Beirut’s concrete bridges and around street corners are thousands of Syrian men who have left home and crossed the border in recent months in the hope of finding work as day laborers.

From 13-year-old schoolboys to limping elderly men, most of them represent impoverished families from Syria’s rural regions who are suffering the brunt of a deepening economic crisis as a 14-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad drags on.

“We could barely buy a pack of bread. We’re suffering from hunger, so I had to come here and do whatever I can,” said Mohammed Mahou, 23, a father of three from an eastern farming town called al-Qamishli.

Syrians who once headed for day work in Aleppo and Damascus have found construction projects halted. Farmers like Mahou say they are unable to work their fields because prices of fertilizer have risen sharply and some areas are unsafe to farm. Meanwhile, prices for basic food staples in Syria have nearly tripled, they say….

Analysis: Rifts widen in Syrian opposition
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Mon May 21, 2012 6:56pm EDT
(Reuters) – A power struggle within Syria’s main opposition group is pitting Islamists against secular politicians and exiled leaders against activists at home, further undermining its claim to be an alternative to President Bashar al-Assad.

Fourteen months into an uprising, the squabbling in the Syrian National Council makes it even less likely to be able to win international recognition or to get more than half-hearted foreign support against Assad. On the ground, the council shows no sign of exerting control as grassroots activists organize protests themselves and rebel fighters operate under nobody’s orders but their own.

More than anything, critics say, the disarray within the opposition mirrors the chaos of Syria itself. “You have a classic situation in the SNC, not much different from the four-decade old totalitarian Assad family rule the uprising aims to topple,” said veteran opposition figure Fawaz Tello.

The internal conflicts have come to a head over the position of Burhan Ghalioun, who offered to step down as leader of the 313-member council last week if a replacement can be found – not that there is guarantee one will be. Some critics brand the 67-year-old liberal sociologist a stooge of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and say he was chosen because he would attract Western support.

Some criticize him for monopolizing the position of council leader, which is meant to rotate every three months. Others fault him for failing to back the armed rebellion against Assad.

“DYING”

“Burhan Ghalioun: the Syrian National Council is dying… We accept your resignation,” read placards at an anti-Assad rally in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Friday. There are signs that foreign patience with the council is running thin too. That does not bode well for the opposition’s chances of getting diplomatic or military support. The Western and Arab countries which recognized Libyan rebels within weeks of them taking up arms against Muammar Gaddafi are still holding back when it comes to Syria.

A military source in France, one of Assad’s most vocal opponents, said the opposition needed to be better organized. “We don’t have that and now it’s playing into the hands of Islamist groups and making it even more difficult for the opposition to organize itself,” the French source said.

The first step is sorting out the leadership position and the Islamists who dominate the council say they are trying to convince Ghalioun to stay on. “If he insists on leaving it will be time to convene the whole council and choose a new leadership on every level,” said Mulhem Droubi, a high-level Muslim Brotherhood official.

Ghalioun is well-connected with France and with Qatar so may still be as close as possible to a consensus figure. But counting against Ghalioun is opposition from inside Syria because of his skepticism over armed resistance by majority Sunni Muslims to the rule of Assad, who is from the minority Alawite sect.

“The rift between the SNC and those inside is growing,” said Yasser Saadeldine, an opposition leaning commentator living in the Gulf. “Ghalioun lacks charisma and he has not embraced armed struggle after Assad killed thousands of his peaceful opponents.”

A senior member of the Free Syrian Army rebel group said Ghalioun was not even “in the equation” but did acknowledge that the Islamists who support him were trying to build serious links with the rebels.

Another candidate for leader could be George Sabra, who came second to Ghalioun in the last leadership vote. Sabra is an ally of Syria’s top dissident Riad al-Turk, an 81-year-old former leftist who spent 25 years as a political prisoner and operates underground inside Syria. The Islamists might also put forward another candidate of their own.

BIGGER CHANGE

But demands are growing for a more radical change than simply a new leader. “There is an elite in the SNC who have brought their own cohorts into the council. They will essentially re-elect themselves unless the SNC is seriously restructured,” said Tello, jailed for five years after a brief period of openness in 200, when Assad inherited power from his father.

Critics say the council needs to better articulate its policy on a U.N. and Arab League peace plan that envisages talks with the authorities on a transition, but not removing Assad’s family or dismantling the police state. Some believe the council will fall apart if it does not undergo a radical overhaul.

“The SNC is on the verge of collapse unless it becomes representative of the whole opposition,” said Rima Fleihan, a human rights campaigner who quit the SNC last year. “It needs to become democratic from A to Z. What is needed now is a broad opposition meeting to escape the vicious cycle of infighting and division.”

How Washington Lost Syria
By Gary C. Gambill
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) E-note, May 2012

With the failure of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to broker a ceasefire in Syria, Western policymakers and pundits are increasingly coming to acknowledge that the country’s descent into civil war is all but inevitable. But this begs the question of when and why it became so. Was it a foregone conclusion when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began last year?

Civil war was always the most likely end to the saga. Syria is the only majority Sunni Muslim country of the modern era to be governed by a largely heterodox Muslim elite, a peculiar historical anomaly that Daniel Pipes likens to “an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming Tsar in Russia.”[1] The Alawite-dominated Assad regime survived for over four decades in the heart of the Sunni Arab Levant in much the same way that Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led government endured in the heart of the Shiite Crescent—through brute force. As Iraq’s recent history illustrates, minoritarian autocracies cannot be peacefully unmade.

If there was a window of opportunity for avoiding a full-blown civil war, it came early in the uprising,….

Palestinian writer describes Syrian prisons as ‘slaughterhouses’
Associated Press – May 23, 2012

AMMAN // A prominent Palestinian writer who spent nearly three weeks in jail in Syria described the prisons as “human slaughterhouses”, saying security agents beat detainees with batons, crammed them into stinking cells and tied them to beds at night.

World not doing enough for Syria, says Turkey’s president
22 May 2012

AFP reports: The international community is not doing enough to help resolve the Syrian crisis, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Tuesday as he urged an orderly transition to democracy. “The international community as whole has so far performed poorly in providing an effective response to the crisis at hand,” Gul said in a public address [...]

UN Observers Concede Presence of Terrorist Groups in Syria

UN peacekeeping observers have acknowledged the presence of terrorist groups in Syria, which are hindering the peace process between the government and the opposition, China’s Xinhua agency has reported, quoting UN peacekeeping head Herve Ladsous.

“We know that there are … a third party (of the conflict), terrorist groups, who are trying to gain advantage for themselves… but we have to see this as an issue within Syria, between the Syrians,” Ladsous said at a news conference held in Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that foreign fighters, some of them Al-Qaeda members, are fighting in extremist groups operating in Syria. Ladsous added that 270 observers are working in six cities across Syria. According to him, observers will arrive in four more cities. {…}

Why Assad shouldn’t worry about NATO
By Elise Labott

As NATO leaders discuss the winding down of its 10-year war in Afghanistan and pat themselves on the back for helping in the bloody ouster of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, there is one increasingly deadly conflict that is taboo for the alliance to even think about wading into: Syria.

Practically every NATO leader has publicly condemned the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and called for him to step down and make way for a democratic transition in Syria. Yet U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said Sunday that not one leader even raised the issue of Syria during the opening day of the summit.

While saying NATO is “very much concerned about the situation of Syria,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made clear the alliance has “no intention whatsoever to intervene.”

NATO’s radio silence has prompted criticism among human rights groups and on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers for question why the alliance supported military intervention in Libya but has ruled out similar action in Syria. One congressional source called the refusal to even talk about the issue “pretty shocking.”…

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Kahramana

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Syria: Houla Massacre Creates International Outcry

Great piece by Amal Hanano on the armchair pundits who never

Volvo Car Rental

Syria: UN Report Shows Powerlessness of Observer Mission

*I need to write like I need to breathe...*

Summer in Damascus

When did our streets and homes become a battlefield? At what

El Tres de Mayo

Sanctions Stop Food Getting to Syria but Not Arms

اغراء من وجهة نظر شاب لم يعاصرها

التسنن السياسي حولنا الى قوادين

ماذا بعد فشل محادثات بغدادا النووية

Volvo 740 Weight

Anima Sana in Corpore Sano

Ghalioun Resigns; Can the SNC Recapture Center Stage; Is Shawkat Dead? No Cooking Gas

I need to write like I need to breathe...