13.06.2012

Syria news roundup


It is a tactic, that Israelis have used and brought to perfection through all the years since 1948 against the Palestinians. Lie and defame, lie again, show your adversaries your disrespect, humiliate them, provoke them, smear and slander, show them that they are powerless, that they are scum. Continue with that treatment till your adversaries cannot take it anymore and start acting aggressively and then: Crush them! They are the terrorists, they are threatening you, they need to be eliminated!
Well, the Western media propagandists seem also well-versed in this technique. The propaganda war against Syria is a mountain of lies, is heinous, evil, vile, perverse. It is meant to separate the skeptics, the critical thinkers, from ignorant, naive, dumb mass media consumers. It is meant to alienate, provoke, humiliate the critical thinkers till they cannot take it anymore and act aggressively.
Let them not provoke us. They are evil, monsters, we knew that before. Just participate and strengthen the alternative network, just cooperate and spread the word.
Don’t forget to prepare for the crash. The Western worlds financial system is on the brink of collapse, economies are in decline, the bio-systems are breaking down.
Change will come, in one way or the other. Maybe the monsters will have to pay dearly for their bloody conquests. The monsters are not immortal, they will die too one day and maybe they will not die peacefully and easy. But who knows -- it’s all in the stars.
Censorship
The Arab League has officially ordered the satellite operators Arabsat and Nilesat to stop broadcasting Syrian media, either public or private (Syria TV, Al-Ekhbariya, Ad-Dounia, Cham TV) Syria TV operates two terrestrial and one satellite television channel, Arrai TV is satellite only.
Both the Syrian government as well as the Arab Association of journalists have complained against the Arabsat and Nilesat closure for Syrian TV signals, declaring the action a breech of media ethics.
The hampering of TV satellites for military purposes is not new. Under pressure from Israel, the USA and the EU blocked Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, Libyan, and Iranian TV channels, one after the other. In Mai last year the Arab League ordered Arabsat to block Libyan TV.
Propaganda war
The French journalist Thierry Meyssan wrote in a recent article on Voltairenet.org that NATO will start a huge propaganda campaign, supported by false-flag actions. If his announcement is true, Friday noon will be horrible. An evil coup, false-flag massacres and the images of a broken regime.
Syrians wanting to watch their national TV stations will see them replaced on their screens by TV programs created by the CIA. Studio-shot images will show massacres that are blamed on the Syrian Government, people demonstrating, ministers and generals resigning from their posts, President Al-Assad fleeing, the rebels gathering in the big city centers, and a new government installing itself in the presidential palace.
Meyssan reports, that several international meetings were organized during the past week to coordinate the disinformation campaign. The first two were technical meetings, held in Doha (Qatar); the third was a political meeting and took place in Riyad (Saudi Arabia).
Errors of the past
Through many years until recently, Dr. Bashar al-Assad was portrait quite favorably as a young introverted man, a medical doctor, who only reluctantly took over the reign from his father. It was said that he would have preferred to work in his profession as a doctor but after the deadly accident of his brother he was groomed as the successor.
Nobody considered this succession as unusual, as there are many other examples of political dynasties in the Mediteranean region, like the Papandreou and Karamanlis clans in Greece. There are also examples of political dynasties in Western countries, for instance the Bush and Kennedy clans.
Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez was considered as a dictatorial ruler with a progressive agenda. He attempted to industrialize the country, invested in infrastructure, education, medicine, literacy, and urban construction. His rule brought great social changes to Syria, including the 1973 constitution which guaranteed women "equal status in society."
When Bashar al-Assad took over, he and his British born wife Asma were treated quite favorably by Western media. He wore western cloth, spoke perfect English, his wife was pretty, both were well educated and perceived to be tolerant and open minded.
Paris Match called Mrs. Assad an “element of light in a country full of shadow zones” and the “eastern Diana.” French Elle counted her among the best-dressed women in world politics, and in 2009, The Huffington Post published an article and fashion slide show titled “Asma al-Assad: Syria’s First Lady and All-Natural Beauty.
She responded beautifully, because she speaks well and is beautiful,” said the Italian writer Gaia Servadio, who worked for Mrs. Assad in Damascus.
In March 2011 the magazine Vogue published a 3,200-word profile titled “A Rose in the Desert.” In it, the writer, Joan Juliet Buck, called Mrs. Assad “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.
This spring, the magazine removed the article from its Web site. Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, issued a statement about the article saying, in part: “Like many at that time, we were hopeful that the Assad regime would be open to a more progressive society. Subsequent to our interview, as the terrible events of the past year and a half unfolded in Syria, it became clear that its priorities and values were completely at odds with those of Vogue.”
The New York Times in an effort to discredit and discount the favorable reports of past years writes: “...the Assads have been especially determined to burnish their image, and hired experts to do so. The family paid the Washington public relations firm Brown Lloyd James 5,000 US$ a month to act as a liaison between Vogue and the first lady.” The New York Times also mentions that the Assad’s hired the public relations firm Bell Pottinger in London.
What a crime! One can only hope that the New York Times judges the advertising and public relation efforts of companies and US agencies, the lobbying in Washington, and the US election campaigns with the same measure.
The New York Times reports in the same piece, that TV journalist Barbara Walters recently offered to provide recommendations for Sheherazad Jaafari, the president’s press aide and the daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, who was applying for a job at CNN and admission to Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Ms. Jaafari wrote in an e-mail (obtained by the The Guardian) to Mike Holtzman (who worked for both the Clinton and Bush administration): “I have always told you -- this man (Bashar al-Assad) is loved by his people.” Mr. Holtzman replied: “I’m proud of you. Wish I were there to help.”
What a crime, to praise the Syrian president in this way! Ms. Walters had to issue a statement expressing regret for her action.
Glitches occur
The ethical framework of Western journalism can be easily characterized with a few key words: Parroting the rulers (money elite, corporations, governments), dispersing lies and misinformation, being   obedient instruments of indoctrination, re-education, propaganda, brainwashing, mind control.
But glitches occur, journalists write between the lines, defy the narrative, speak rare worts of truth.
British Channel 4 News chief correspondent Alex Thomson for example reported that FSA rebels deliberately tried to get him and his crew killed in a bid to discredit the Syrian regime. Thomson also mentioned that an Arab League observer had him told to have been set up in a similar manner.
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The Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese, reports on June 8:
Christians have become unwitting terrified targets, their churches bombed, homes destroyed and family members kidnapped and held for ransom.
"If the ransoms are not paid those held are killed," says Father Rahal Dergham, Migrant Chaplain for the Archdiocese of Sydney's Syrian and Iraqi Catholic communities. "Many Iraqi Christians fled to Syria after they became targets and their churches were burned. Now the same thing is happening in Syria. Everyone in the two Sydney communities has family in Syria. They are living in fear of what could happen to them and whether or not they are safe. Whole suburbs where Christians lived in Homs have been destroyed," he says and speaks of Christians being rounded up and kicked out of their homes.
"Priests have also been killed and others have been seriously wounded. In Homs the church of Mar Elian is in ruins and Our Lady of Peace is occupied by rebels, with the Armenian Apostolic Church and its adjoining school has been seized and occupied as a base for the Free Syrian Army."
A  Catholic monastery has also been attacked by gun-toting militiamen demanding weapons and money. Kidnapping for ransom has also become a fundraiser for militant Muslim extremists who grab Christians and demand as much as 20,000 US$ for their safe return.
"In Syria 20,000 US$ is enough to build a house. It is a large amount of money but Christians struggle to borrow money from extended family and friends to pay these ransoms knowing that if they don't, their loved one will be shot," says Father Rahal.
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Turkish opposition legislators visited Syrian refugee camps and confirmed the absence of more than thousand by the UN registered refugees in the main camp. They noted, by contrast, the presence of a big weapons arsenal in the camp. The legislators demanded in Parliament that Prime Minister Erdogan reveals the rising amount of humanitarian aid being given to the phantom refugees. The legislators maintain that the refugee camps are a cover for secret military operations, sheltering in reality combatants, principally Libyans who are using it as a rear base. The opposition legislators also asserted, that these combatants were responsible for the Houla massacre.
Turkey has banned reporters from visiting the refugee camps.
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Rebels are burning the farmlands in Al-Rastan and Talbeseh areas of Homs and also killed 11 workers of a state-owned fertilizer factory near the town of al-Qusair in Homs province. 
In one week more than 200 Syrian soldiers were killed in FSA attacks. The FSA never respected the ceasefire of the Annan plan.
Israel sends weapons to Iraqi Kurdistan, which are then smuggled into Syria with financial assistance from Qatar. Kurdistans President Massoud Barzani has facilitated the operations of illegal Israeli firms in the region.
The FSA has got new mortars, RPG-29, anti-tank weapons (9K115-2 Metis-M and Kornet E), and also recently surface to air missiles.
The USA has trained 400 al-Qaeda militants in Kosovo. They are already transferred to Syria to carry out terror acts.
Save the children
The UN bureaucracy is on message, a press release on June 11 about “Children and Armed Conflict” claims:
On the list are armed groups in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq as well as the Syrian Government forces who regularly shell, burn, loot and raid schools, as well as assault or threat teachers, students, and medical personnel.
New crises have caused enormous suffering for children and continue in 2012. In Syria, children were victims of killing and maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, by the Syrian Armed Forces, the intelligence forces, and the Shabbiha militia.
Children between 8 and 13 were forcibly taken from their homes and used by soldiers as human shields, placing them in front of the windows of buses carrying military personnel into the raid on villages. Schools have been regularly raided, used as military bases and detention centres. In detention, girls and boys were beaten, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions and to electrical shocks, as well as whipped with heavy electrical cables.
This is completely new and has until now not be reported by any newspaper! 
Various credible sources told that more than 1000 schools and churches have been burned down by Islamists and hundreds of teachers killed, but atrocities against children by Syrian soldiers until now were never claimed.
The UN doesn’t mention details, sources, witnesses, forensic evidence. These are serious allegations, these are warcrimes which have to be immediately brought before the ICC!
If the UN bureaucracy cannot instantly provide solid proof of these claims it is itself guilty of a serious crime and has diminished its status to that of an obedient servant of NATO and the Gulf Monarchies.
And in this case Russia, China and all other nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization shouldn’t bother with this body too much anymore and simply paralyze it with constant vetoes in the Security Council.
Russia has to be fast
Israel’s usually well informed news agency DEBKAfile reports, that President Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against Syria and the imposition of no-fly zones.
DEBKAfile mentions two paths of action: 
1. To go for Assad’s removal by stepping up arms supplies to the rebels and organizing their forces as a professional force able to take on the military units loyal to Assad. This process was already in evidence on June 8, when for the first time FSA fighters attacked a Syrian army battalion in Damascus. One of the targets was a bus carrying Russian specialists.
2. To select a group of high army officers who, under the pressure of the limited air offensive, would be ready to stage a military coup. The US operation would be modulated according to the way political and military events unfolded.
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The Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reports that President Putin ordered the general staff to work out a plan for military operations in Syria.
The units being set up for an intervention are the 76th Division of airborne forces (an especially experienced unit of the Russian army), the 15th Army Division, as well as special forces from a brigade of the Black Sea fleet, which has a base in the Syrian port of Tartus.
The details of the operational plan are being prepared by the working parties of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, to which most of the post-Soviet states belong, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to which China and Russia belong.
It was written here already in the post What really happened, that Russia has to support Syria not only with advisors and weapons but also with any other possible means, because the same methods used now in Syria will be applied later in the Caucasus and Central Asia, destabilizing its southern neighbors Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and its southern republics Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.
The Russians should not shy back from sending a peacekeeping and stabilization force into Syria to create puffer zones and to police the 822 kilometer long border to Turkey, but Russia should send the troops fast. As long as not at least 20.000 Russian peacekeepers have taken position on Syrian soul, the danger of a NATO blitzkrieg remains.
President Putin’s recent proposal of a free trade zone with Syria should also be instantly realized.

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