anti-war

Despite the clear and convincing evidence that a 2013 Sarin attack in Syria was staged and effected by foreign intelligence agencies working with terrorist groups, to be used as a pretext for “humanitarian intervention”, this fabrication and other false allegations against the Syrian government are now being dusted off again, along with a suitable replacement “government in waiting”. But something happened in the meantime — Syria had a democratic presidential election with three candidates, in which even refugee expatriates went out of their way to vote - and Bashar Al Assad was returned with overwhelming approval. Any country ignoring the legality of the Assad Government in Syria surely does so at peril of later accusations of war-crimes.

The following article was republished from a letter entitled, "Attacking Syria is simply illegal"in the Border Mail, which is a Fairfax paper, on Sept. 27, 2014, midnight.)

A YEAR ago we saw a real demonstration of democracy in our electorate, as Cathy McGowan defeated the sitting member with the help of a strong preferential vote. At the same time as this was happening, plans by the “Western allies” for violent change of government in Syria following the criminal fabrication of a chemical weapons attack on Damascus were effectively thwarted by skilled Russian diplomacy.

Despite the clear and convincing evidence that the Sarin attack was staged and effected by foreign intelligence agencies working with terrorist groups, to be used as a pretext for “humanitarian intervention”, this fabrication and other false allegations against the Syrian government are now being dusted off again, along with a suitable replacement “government in waiting”.

But something happened in the meantime — Syria had a presidential election. [Ed. For the dramatic details, see "Video added: Anti-Syria camp taken aback by high voter turnout among Syrian expats"]

Despite the atrocious problems and continued fighting in some areas of Syria, 73 per cent of eligible voters cast their votes.

Even refugees participated, with more than 100,000 voting in Lebanon.

Unfortunately for the West’s ambitions, Syrians overwhelmingly supported their current president Bashar al Assad; the two opposition candidates received only 7 per cent of the vote.

Though declared free and fair by international observers, the election was hypocritically described as “illegal” by the US and Australia, and this is now being used as a justification for breaching Syria’s sovereignty without UN approval.

As we have now tacitly acknowledged the truth of President Assad’s claim that he was fighting “foreign terrorists”, isn’t it time to also acknowledge the democratically expressed will of the Syrian people, and time to abandon the preposterous idea that the cabal of Western and Gulf-state backed puppets we recognise as “legitimate representatives of the Syrian people” has no legitimacy whatsoever among those very people?

Republished from RT (5/9/14). See also: IAEA says looks into Russian warning on Syria nuclear site – Reuters (6/9/14).

A military strike on Syria could lead to a nuclear catastrophe if a missile were to hit a reactor containing radioactive uranium, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman warned. The remark comes as the US continues to push for a military strike on Syria. "If a warhead, by design or by chance, were to hit the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MNSR) near Damascus, the consequences could be catastrophic," Aleksandr Lukashevich said in a Wednesday statement.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry urged the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to complete a risk evaluation as the US continues to seek support for military action. It asked the agency to “react swiftly” and carry out “an analysis of the risks linked to possible American strikes on the MNSR and other facilities in Syria.”

Lukashevich stated that the region could be at risk of “contamination by highly enriched uranium and it would no longer be possible to account for nuclear material, its safety and control.” He added that such material could fall into the wrong hands.

The IAEA said that it is aware of the statement, but it is waiting for a formal request asking the agency to complete a risk evaluation. “We will consider the questions raised if we receive such a request," Reuters quoted an IAEA spokesperson as saying.

The agency said in a report to member states last week that Syria had declared there was a “small amount of nuclear material” at the MNSR, a type of research reactor usually fuelled by highly enriched uranium.

Although this type of a reactor would not contain a lot of nuclear material, it would be enough to cause "a serious local radiation hazard" if the reactor was hit, nuclear expert Mark Hibbs from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Reuters.

The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Wednesday to approve President Obama's plan to strike Syria in retaliation against the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Should Congress move to approve the president’s request, the US could soon initiate a limited strike on Syria.

On the other hand, Moscow needs convincing proof – not rumors - from UN experts that chemical weapons were used in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with AP and Channel 1 on Tuesday.

“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,” Putin said. He added that so far there is no information regarding exactly which chemical agent was used in the attack in the Damascus suburb, or who was behind it.

Source: http://on.rt.com/9tht10

"In Paris this week [week of September 20], the great and the gruesome came together to discuss the existential threat of ISIS, but the two countries actually doing something meaningful about that threat - Syria and Iran - were of course not invited. Confused? You won't be after you have heard our first guest, Hasib Risby, a commentator on the region and part of digital resistance." A very clear analysis of what is happening with ISIS, Syria, Iran, and the US in the Middle East, by George Galloway and Gayatri Pertiwi with Haseeb Rizvi. The original program (with no transcript) is at http://rt.com/shows/sputnik/189028-isis-summit-paris-uk/

GALLOWAY: A state of total confusion reigns in the western capitals about what to do about the catastrophe unfolding in Syria and in Iraq. The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, rules out Britain going back to war in Iraq and is instantly repudiated by David Cameron. Still, at time of recording (September 20, 2014), who insists that 'all options remain open'.

GAYATRI: In the US, things are no more clear. There, the commander in chief of the US military, President Obama, is impudently contradicted by the top military brass. The president says that there will be absolutely no American boots on the ground. And yet, the generals, including the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that there will be, in fact, boots on the ground, if necessary.

GALLOWAY: Cameron claims he can bomb ISIS in Syria from over Syrian airspace, without the permission of the Syrian government. The said Syrian government is armed and dangerous and entirely within its legal rights to shoot down any and all military aircraft over their territory, and has the military hardware to do so.

GAYATRI: Neither the US nor the UK governments who, some argue, caused the disaster in the first place, have any intention of helping the actual government of Iraq - a government only in power because of them. And they won't even deliver to Bagdad the weapons and planes they have already paid for, even though ISIS is at the gates.

GALLOWAY: In Paris this week [week of September 20], the great and the gruesome came together to discuss the existential threat of ISIS, but the two countries actually doing something meaningful about that threat - Syria and Iran - were of course not invited. Confused? You won't be after you have heard our first guest, Hasib Risby, a commentator on the region and part of digital resistance.

Haseeb, welcome to the show. Tell the viewers, first of all, how things are on the ground now, in Iraq. What territory does ISIS hold? Who's fighting them? Are there any indications of a change in the military situation on the ground?

HASEEB: So the situation varies from parts to parts, but primarily, we're talking about north east Syria and north west Iraq being under heavy ISIS influence. Not necessarily blanket control, but heavy segments of those areas. And, within those areas that they have control [over] there's various battles taking place along the borders of those regions that they control. So, for example, they're fighting with Kurds, they're fighting against other Syrian rebel groups, such as Al-Nusra and the Islamic Front, as well as, I think, the Free Syrian army as well. And, towards Iraq, they're fighting, obviously, the Iraqi armed forces as well as Shia militias that are defending their territory against further ISIS expansion. So, at the moment, ISIS are involved in a lot of battles. They're fighting quite a few people at the same time, to be honest. And the recent kind of resurgence of the Iraqi armed forces as well as from the US airstrikes and stuff has prevented futher expansion, but they are showing no sign of stopping. And that's kind of worrying. They seem to be still going about their day to day exectuions in a very kind of sophisticated, well-planned manner.

GALLOWAY: And they're still controlling major Iraqi cities.

HASEEB: Absolutely. And, you know, in Syria, for example, in the city of Ah-Raqqah [1], they more or less run the show there completely.

GALLOWAY: Which is thought to be the place where they're carrying out these hidious executions of foreigners.

HASEEB: Yeah, yeah. That part and various border towns between Iraq and Syria, where there is, you know, very loose control of anything, is where they'are operating, and they have pretty good control over those areas.

GALLOWAY: Now you mentoned the US airstrikes. I've seen US air strikes. I've seen them in Vietnam, I've seen them in Cambodia, I've seen them in the Iraq war, I've seen them in Afghanistan. These are not meaningful US airstrikes. Which leads me to wonder why? If the United States was really as concerned about ISIS as they say they are and that we should be, they would be bombing them a lot more seriously than they are. These are very desultory, very occasional, and very small airstrikes. Why?

HASEEB: Absolutely. And, you know, adding on to what you're saying, they should have reacted much sooner, one would imagine. It's taken this long for them to react to it, whilst previous prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki,[3] was constantly pleading to America for support against the growing threat of militancy in his country, but it fell on deaf ears, basically. What you see is as soon as for example, ISIS started threatening the Kurdish region, is when America suddenly started taking things more seriously -

GALLOWAY: Only there, in the Kurdish region, where their oil interests are -

HASEEB: Where their oil interests are -

GALLOWAY: And where they want to break Iraq up!

HASEEB: Well, there you go. It's a strategic place for them, Kurdistan, because, you know, they've got ties with Israel, and you've heard storied about Kurdistan selling oil to Israel, just a matter of weeks after ISIS took over and stuff like that, completely illegally. But you see that America and the west in general, only reacted then. Not when 2000 or so Shia army cadets were massacred

GALLOWAY: Why can't the regional players sort this matter out themselves?

HASEEB: What you have at the moment is these very confused blurred lines that exist where, whilst Saudi Arabia and all these countries, essentially, went to Paris for a deal, were the ones that essentially that kind of allowed ISIS to exist in the first place, through turning a blind eye to money and weapons being trafficked to them. And now they realise that it's going to come back to bite them. So now they're trying to react, but it's a bit too late, because the people inside these countries, already, inside Saudi Arabia, inside Qatar, they've been fed the sectarian rhetoric already. So they buy the ISIS line very easily, You see already, in places like Jourdan and Saudi Arabia, many ISIS flags have been raised, and there are a lot of people

GAYATRI: So the opposite of feeling threatened?

HASEEB: Exactly, so, to be honest with you, Saudi Arabia, any of these Gulf states, to try and intervene militarily against ISIS will just be counter-productive as well, just as much as it would be for the US to do so. Which then makes it another sticky situation. If Iran and Syria were the only ones to kind of attack ISIS, then it becomes, 'Oh, the Shias are attacking Sunnis!'

GALLOWAY: Hasib, there's a state of confusion. There's no Islamic State, but there's a state of confusion reigning over all this. I mean, even in ontological terms. What exactly are ISIS? Who are they? What do they want?

HASEEB: ISIS... if you try and simplify what they are, essentially is a collection of ruthless, angry and violent individuals that have come together under a false notion of, you know, a 'califphate',[4] under some sort of illusion that they're trying to do a good thing for the world. And their ethos essentially is something that has been fed by something that has been prevalent in Saudi Arabia for so long, under the teachings of Wahhabism and Salafism. And I understand, obviously that not all Wahhabis and not all Salafis are as extreme as ISIS,

GALLOWAY: - Of course not -

HASEEB: However, the fundamentals behind these sects have really spurred on the kind of ideological principles for why ISIS go about doing the things that they do. And further more, it's like, it seem that they've kind of tried to go one above Al Qaeda, with their ruthlessness. They've decided, you know, 'We're going to stand out!' - you know - 'This is going to be our brand!' - almost. And the way they celebrate and glorify their violence, and dehumanise those that they're killing, it's actually pretty chilling. And I don't we've seen a group like it.

GALLOWAY: Or the end of it.

GAYATRI: I mean, from the Free Syrian Army we've already witnessed the most horrible things -

HASEEB: And they're the moderate ones, by the way!

GAYATRI: - And now -

GALLOWAY: They were the moderates - the moderate heart-eaters, you mean! We haven't actually seen ISIS eating hearts yet. That's probably something still to come. They behave like a kidn of death cult.

HASEEB: Yeah.

GALLOWAY: There seems nothing Islamic about them.

HASEEB. No.

GALLOWAY: I hate it when people call them the Islamic State because they're neither Islamic nor are they a state. How do they find any theological justification for the mass excecution of helpless, handcuffed prisoners in the wartime? How do they justify theologically slicing off the heads of Aid workers and journalists that fall into their hands, and videoing it for the entertainment, presumably, of their own site?

HASEEB: Their justification, presumably, is that anyone that disagrees with their very specific set of thoughts is not worthy of life, essentially. Especially when you're on their land.

GALLOWAY: But it's not their land, is it?

HASEEB: Well -

GALLOWAY: The person slicing the heads off of these American and British journalists is thought to be English.

HASEEB: Yeah.

GAYATRI: Well, they're from London. That's the part I don't compute. Young men from London! You know, growing up in this modern global city and then going back -

HASEEB: For them, their land is essentially this Islamic caliphate land. You've seen the view of - I'm sure you've seen the picture of where they want to go eventually. So they've carved this section out for themselves and whatever they say goes in this area. I've seen videos of scholars - sorry - their clerics, rather, where they tell you that when you're cutting someone's head off, you should enjoy it. It shouldn't be like when you kill an animal - you should do that very mercifully - but when you kill a human being, because it's a enemy of God, you should enjoy it. Take your time. So it's very, very disturbing. There's this very kind of strong lust towards violence within this group that is - I don't think we've seen it before. I don't think we've seen, you know, a group like this before.

GALLOWAY: No.

Gayatri: They're hell on earth, isn't it.

HASEEB: Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it was in one of the newspapers, the Guardian, I think, that introduced ISIS in the British media as, 'Here's a group that is worse than Al Quaida.' And that stood out to me as well. I'm thinking, as a good way to put it -

GALLOWAY: They make Al Quaida look like boy scouts. Now, how do we follow Digital Resistance and what do you do?

HASEEB: So, what we do; we collate news from various media outlets to try and put together a story line that actually makes sense that's actually true as to what's happening. As well as that we provide analysis and opinions on various newstories. You can follow us on twitter @dgtlresistance or facebook.

NOTES

Civil war
Main article: Battle of Ar-Raqqah

In March 2013, during the Syrian civil war, Islamist jihadist militants from Al-Nusra Front and other groups overran the government loyalists in the city and declared it under their control after seizing the central square and pulling down the statue of the former president of Syria Hafez al-Assad.

The Al Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front set up a sharia court at the sports centre[ and in early June 2013 the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) said they were open to receive complaints at their Raqqa headquarters.

Since May 2013 the ISIS has been increasing its control over the city, at the expense of the Free Syrian Army and the Al-Nusra Front. The ISIS has executed Alawites and suspected supporters of Bashar al-Assad in the city and attacked the city's Shia mosques and Christian churches such as the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs, which has since been converted into an ISIS headquarters. The Christian population of Ar-Raqqah, which was estimated to be as many as 10% of the total population before the civil war began, has largely fled the city.

In January 2014 it was reported that ISIS militants in the city gained control of the western part of a Syrian army base, while the group closed all educational institutions in the city, where it has withstood rebel assaults.

On 25 July, the Islamic State captured the Syrian Army base in Raqqah which garrisoned the 17th Division, and beheaded many soldiers.

[3] Nouri Kamil Mohammed Hasan al-Maliki, previous primeminister of Syria, current Vice President.
[4] A Caliphate is an islamic state, led by a political and religious leader, known as a caliph, seen as a successor to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

The video and letters here testify to eye-witness documentation of atrocities in Syria which Mussalaha Reconciliation Initiative in Syria spokespersons complain were ignored by the UN because they were committed by so-called ‘moderates’ supported by the US and or Saudi Arabia. The crimes ignored were so bad and so big that this accusation points to corruption in the UN on an alarming scale. Although the article summarises their content, the original letters relating to the complaint to the UN are included here. They are also published on the AMRIS site.

The video is set to begin here at the part where the witnesses tell their stories in arabic, (subtitled in English), not at the beginning of the video, which shows 'rebels' beheading people etc in a film they produced themselves to promote fear. A selection of screenshots can be accessed at http://australiansforreconciliationinsyria.org/letter-to-un-commission-of-inquiry-on-syria-is-politically-compromised/

The complaint about the UN is documented in correspondence from a Catholic nun who lives in Syria, Mother Agnes Mariam (lay name Fadia Al-Lahham),[1] and Dr Nabil Fayad[2] with Ms Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. Mother Agnes and Dr Fayad also refer to a letter from Ismail Zien, UN Coordinator of the Independent Commission of Inquiry investigators in the Syrian region. They complain that Mr Zien has requested documentation of mostly individual incidents whilst completely ignoring the videoed documents testifying to atrocities in Adra of a severity and scale surpassing any others mentioned by him. They also describe his reporting as glossing over similar war crimes at Qara, Deir Atieh, Nebek, Sadad, Maalula.

The Adra atrocities: “brutality, violence and sheer insanity”

Adra is an industrial city north of Damascus, the capital of Syria. Work there attracted Syrians of all kinds and religions, from every part of the country. Many displaced citizens sought refuge there from rebel invasions in other parts of Syria. In early December 2013 a cohort of rebels invaded the city. Thousands fled but thousands were also trapped there. The Mussalah Reconciliation spokespeople say that every kind of horror, imaginable and unimaginable, was inflicted on Adra, every act of brutality, violence and sheer insanity. The people were subjected to bloodletting and barbarity. Groups were selected for execution because of their religion and at random. There was mass abduction, torture, gang rape, and the most violent mass murders imaginable, including the roasting alive of workers in the commercial ovens of the government bakery (not by the government, by the rebels).

Although people from the Mussalaha Initiative in Syria informed the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) and sent them eyewitness statements about the Adra atrocities quickly after they began, they say there was no acknowledgement of this extraordinary information.

On March 12, 2014, with the publication of the 7th report of the UN Independent Commission (CoI) the events in Adra were still unacknowledged. The writers of the letter below say this was ‘the worst distortion of events yet’. They complained and say that they received an explanation that there had been ‘technical problems’ and were told that an appendix would be issued covering the war-crimes in Adra. On 12 May 2014 a letter arrived from Mr Ismail Zain (see below) requesting interviewees about human rights violations from Syria to Lebanon for events of significance which he specified. Even now Adra was not mentioned.

The complainants then ‘perceived that the issue had been closed permanently’.

They then wrote that, in their analysis, it had become widely apparent that anything that the Syrian government does wrong is immediately highlighted, expanded and rehashed as a deed of the whole apparatus of the State, while little is said about the permanent violation of human rights on the part of the rebels. Their violations, when reported, are taken in isolation, in such a manner as to attribute some blame to some of them, but not to the entire corpus of the rebel entity, nor to those who back them.

The only reason they can find for this double standard is that the UN Independent Commission has been compromised. They write that a pattern has emerged where groups of rebels like Jabhat al Nusra, which openly promotes and advertises their terrorist atrocities, and which is called ‘terrorist’ by the United State of America and even by Saudi Arabia (itself considered to be the main funder of Salafist jihadi activity in Syria) will have some of their crimes acknowledged by the UN Independent Commission. However crimes by other groups will be concealed to avoid shining a light on the fact that the people called ‘moderate rebels’ by actors outside Syria, ‘have themselves reached a similar level of unspeakable barbarity and terror’.

They say that the so-called ‘moderates’ are behind the Adra atrocities and that these crimes are going largely unreported and uninvestigated by the UN in order to protect certain international States who are ‘belligerent parties to the conflict in Syria’ and who have been the principle backers and financiers of these ‘moderates’.

Supermarket of horror

They accuse the UN Independent Commission of picking and choosing which atrocities they report, like items on shelves in a supermarket, on the basis of how acceptable the exposure of those crimes is to certain countries outside Syria. [Candobetter.net Ed. That is, they avoid reporting war crimes carried out by groups supported by countries like the United States and other NATO members, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.]

They say that they refuse to participate in this deception by the International Community the Security Council of the UN and many other government and non-government organisations that are guided by the Independent Commission’s reports. They demand that the Commission be independent and neutral.

“We want to encourage the CoI to take a transparent approach to Adra’s crimes as well as other terrifying human rights violations by the armed groups in Syria, and now Iraq, and to those who finance them and work assiduously to keep their protégés from being held accountable. Until we are sure that the CoI has rid itself of the influences that coerce it to act in a duplicitous manner manifest in its deception and bias we will suspend our cooperation in bringing forward the victims of terror for interview in Lebanon as to do so is only to further their suffering adding insult to injury when subsequently the traumatic experiences they have endured are minimised or ignored.”

Below are the actual documents, the contents of which I have summarised and edited to try to get the message across as directly as possible. The originals, whilst comprehensive and comprehensible, are written in English by non-native writers, referring to places and people which will be unfamiliar to most of our readers. So I have tried to make the contents more accessible and hope that people will also read the letters. Much of my summary below is paraphrased from the longer source material, which is included below. I have decided not to try to indicate exact paraphrasings because my objective is to make this report as short and clear as possible, but readers can obviously work out what has been directly cited or paraphrased for themselves by consulting the originals.

Letter from Mother Agnes Mariam (Fadia Al-Lahham ) to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

From: “INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT TEAM FOR MUSSALAHA IN SYRIA”

Subject: Fwd: Declaration of the Mussalaha Syria to the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI).

H. E. Ms. Navanethem Pillay
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson
1201 Geneva
Switzerland

To Her Excellency Ms. Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Their Excellencies the Chairperson and Commissioners of The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) and Their Excellencies the President, Vice-Presidents and the representatives of the current member states of the Human Rights Council at Geneva.

A declaration to the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) from the Mussalaha Reconciliation Initiative in Syria suspending cooperation with the Commission of Inquiry.

DECLARATION

A Declaration to the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI).

We will not be a Supermarket of Horror
We are suspending our cooperation while you are politically compromised!
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (CoI) was established on 22 August 2011 by the United Nations Human Rights Council through resolution S-17/1 with a mandate to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law since March 2011 in the Syrian Arab Republic. Between 22/08/2011 and 05/02/2013 the CoI had produced 7 reports. Reading these reports, we as people living within the maelstrom of the Syrian conflict, were shocked at the distorted representation of the conflict which was being presented to the international community.

On March 7th of 2013 the Mussalaha Reconciliation Initiative through the support of The Institute of Democracy and Cooperation – Paris and the Russian Orthodox Church NGO, The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society were facilitated in going to Geneva to challenge the contents of the CoI reports and to make submissions to them with regard to the inaccuracies, manipulations and the alarming omissions which we noted. Central to our mission was the desire to bring forth a more accurate representation of the Syrian reality and in particular to highlight before the Commission the many human rights abuses that were absent from their reporting.

We were thankful for an opportunity to cooperate with the Commission in the trusting belief that account would be taken of our grave concerns and thus we commenced in the work of bringing forward witnesses to recount the many horrors and abuses inflicted upon the person and the community by countless armed factions in Syria, crimes that were heretofore largely ignored by the CoI.

In the short term we have seen some small changes and mild improvements in the CoI reporting and believing that this might be the first tentative steps towards a more honest and truthful representation of events we endured in our work of collecting data and bringing forward, from various parts of Syria eye witnesses who could provide firsthand accounts to the CoI team in Lebanon. We watched and waited on the CoI to improve in its reporting but sadly we have reached our limit of tolerance and the breaking point came for us in regard to the CoI’s wilful failure to report on the unspeakable horror that was Adra!

The Horror of Adra will live in the eternal memory of a nation’s people even if it is not found in the pages of a CoI report!

Adra is a workers city on the outskirts of Damascus whose population were an amalgam of Syrians, workers from every corner and creed of the country all there to work in its many industries and services. During the conflict the population of the town had swollen as many displaced citizens fled their seeking refuge from rebel invasions in other localities. In early December of 2013 terror came to Adra as a cohort of rebels invaded the city, thousands fled but thousands more were trapped. The horror inflicted on Adra encapsulates every act of brutality, violence and sheer insanity that can be imagined and not imagined. The city’s population were subjected to bloodletting and barbarity; groups were selected for execution by religious affiliation while others suffered the same fate regardless of affiliation. War crimes and crimes against humanity were the order of the day, mass abduction, torture, gang rape and the most violent mass murders imaginable including the roasting alive of workers in the commercial ovens of government bakery.

As soon as reports stated to surface about the unfolding massacre in Adra we immediately informed the CoI and started to forward eyewitness testimonies to them and then we waited and waited for the CoI to acknowledge this a case of multiple violations of international human rights law.

On March 12th 2014 under the auspices of the IDC Paris and the IOPS, Dr Mohammad Nabil Faiyad head of the Justice Party and head of KNOW for documenting HR violations in Syria and Mother Agnes Mariam (civil name Fadia Al Lahham) President of the ISTEAMS, returned to Geneva for another session of the CoI in the company of Syrian researcher Aysar Maydani, head of the independent NGO, NOSTIA (The Network of Syrian Scientists, Technologists and Innovators Abroad) to again make submission (here and here) for a session of the CoI dedicated to the discussion of the, by now, 7th report of the commission, a report which in our opinion is the worst distortion of events yet. We jointly discussed the details of this report and expressed our astonishment at the absence of any mention of the Adra massacres even though the invasion and the accompanying atrocities took place within the timeframe addressed by the report. Likewise during the same timeframe as Adra the tragedies at Qara, Deir Atieh, Nebek, Sadad, Maalula and others had occurred and though covered they were glossed over in such a manner as to hardly represent the reality on the ground as we observed it. In respect to Adra those who spoke with us attributed this to technical problems and promised us at the highest level that an appendix would be issued detailing the crime of all crimes that is Adra.

On the 12th of May 2014 we received a letter from Mr. Ismail Zain – coordinator of the team of CoI investigators in the region requesting our assistance as usual to bring the victims of human rights violations from Syria to Lebanon to be interviewed. He mentioned the events of significance in which they took an interest. Based on the letter and the absence of any request to bring forward witnesses from Adra we perceived that the issue had been closed permanently.

From: Ismail Zien

Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 8:13:20 PM

To: MAM ofC

Dear Mother Agnes,

Friday 16 May is fine with us. Hope you can arrange the meeting in your office in Adonis.

We need 15 Witnesses/victims from:
– (Homs): car bombs.
– Karam Louz: car bombs.
– Manar school, Jourah of Bab Touma, 17 April.
– Akrama, car bomb near mosque, 17 April.
– Bader El Din Husaini Institute, al Shaghur, 29 April.
– Homs, 2 car bombs in Al Zahra , al Abassiya circle. 29 April.
– Jibreen and Hemairi villages, Hama, 2 cars bombs. 2 May.

Thank you.

Ismail

The letter is directed to Mother Agnes Mariam (Fadia Al-Lahham ) who was in the U.S.A. at the time. In the letter, Mr. Ismail Zain is requesting 15 witnesses to the following crimes: A car bombs in Homs. A car bomb in Karam Louz. Mortar shelling on the Manar School in Jourah of Bab Touma, Damascus. Mortar shelling on the Bader El Din Husaini Institute at al Shaghur, Damascus. Two car explosions in Alzahra and Al-Abassiya, Homs. Two car explosions in Jibreen and Hemairi, Hama.

Here it is necessary to mention the following:

1: Notwithstanding the video interview testimony we submitted to the CoI there is no mention at all in this letter for the need to meet witnesses who emerged recently from Adra. It is obvious that the investigation not only relies on audio-visual evidence/documentation or on the testimonies of witnesses via telephone, but rather it is preferable to interview the witnesses directly. However we did not receive such request to bring forward witnesses in respect of Adra.

2: As for the Bader El Din Husaini Institute, we were able to connect – via telephone from our office in Damascus- one of the officials in the commission with a student who was a witness to what happened at the aforementioned institute. We believe that the dialogue which took place between the two was sufficient to convey the significance of what happened and accordingly but unlike the Adra case they requested to examine witnesses to this incident.

3: We had also mentioned to the CoI the tragedy of the village of Kharaba in Al-Suwaida province but we did not hear anything in response to that tragedy as with others we had flagged.

4: Moreover even in the instances where the CoI took a selective interest in some instance of terror the timeframe by which we were required to bring forward 15 witnesses including children from Homs and Damascus to Lebanon for interview at the convenience of Mr. Ismail Zien would itself have required a small miracle.

In our analysis It has become widely apparent that any infringement from the Syrian government is immediately highlighted, expanded and rehashed as the deed of the whole apparatus of the State and repeated in numerous ways while little is said about the permanent violation of human rights on the part of the rebels whose violations when reported are taken in isolation one from other and in such a manner as to only attribute some blame to some of them but not to the entire corpus of the rebel entity and to those who back them. We ask ourselves why this double standard prevails and why the apparent selectivity in reporting of violations, sadly we are confirmed in our conclusion that the Commission is compromised in its work. A pattern has emerged where by those groups of rebels like Jabhat al Nusra who already openly promote and advertise their terrorist atrocities and who are designated as terrorist by the United States of America and even Saudi Arabia, which itself is considered the main funder of salafist jihadi activity in Syria, will have some of their crimes acknowledged by the CoI but the crimes of other groups will be concealed because to reference them is to shine a light on the fact that those designated by outside actors as “moderate rebels” have themselves reached a similar level of unspeakable barbarity and terror.

In cases like those of Adra and Kharaba where we hold and have submitted testimonies the evidence points to the fact that those behind the crimes were so called “moderates” and thus it becomes a matter of political necessity and expediency to ignore such atrocities for the convenience of certain regional and international States who are themselves belligerent parties to the conflict in Syria and stained by the crime of being the principle backers and financiers of those very same so called “moderates”.

By ignoring these incidents the CoI has failed in its remit to investigate all human rights violations and we consider this contravention deeply damaging to the credibility of a Commission which is mandated to be independent. When the Commission employs double standards among the warring parties in Syria it becomes biased and when it fails to inform the International Community on the full range of grave violations that has occurred it reduces itself to the level of a perjurer. In our own trusting hope of better we sadly find ourselves treated like a supermarket of horror where the Commission will pick and choose selectively from the atrocities we bring forward and in such a manner as to prepare reports that are acceptable to the palates of certain countries. By this totally unacceptable action we say the CoI is politically compromised.

We refuse to be instrumentalized as a component part in an act of deception that misleads the International Community, the Security Council of the U.N. as well as many other Organizations both governmental and nongovernmental that are guided by the CoI reports. We unequivocally demand the Commission be independent and neutral, and that it ends the policy of selectivity and censorship that we see so manifest in its wilful avoidance of reporting on the matter of Adra, the workers city.

We want to encourage the CoI to take a transparent approach to Adra’s crimes as well as other terrifying human rights violations by the armed groups in Syria, and now Iraq, and to those who finance them and work assiduously to keep their protégés from being held accountable. Until we are sure that the CoI has rid itself of the influences that coerce it to act in a duplicitous manner manifest in its deception and bias we will suspend our cooperation in bringing forward the victims of terror for interview in Lebanon as to do so is only to further their suffering adding insult to injury when subsequently the traumatic experiences they have endured are minimised or ignored.

Mother Fadia Laham
Head of the International Team for Reconciliation in Syria

Doctor M. Nabil Fayad
Head of Know, for documenting HR violations in Syria

NOTES

[1] Mother Agnes has a Palestinian Lebanese background, but she set up a monastery in Syria about 20 years ago. She was forced to leave the monastery after she received death threats and now is based in both Lebanon and Syria.

[2] Dr Nabil Fayad is a Syrian. He is the Head of Know, for documenting HR violations in Syria.

Candobetter.net recently received a review copy of Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices, Simon & Schuster, 2014. Curious, I opened it at the chapter on “Syria: A wicked problem.” It was interesting to have a document from the horse’s mouth, or the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Her style as a US Secretary of State dealing with foreign affairs reminded me of an old-fashioned psychiatrist’s unimaginative confirmation of problems in any patient they are sent, where, even if the patient is quite sane, she’s going to find them insane. Note: Some clarificatory changes have been made to text since yesterday's first publication.

Clinton on Syria

Dismayingly, but not unexpectedly, in her writing, Clinton shows little knowledge, interest in, or respect for Syria. In summary, she tries to justify the anti-Assad US position with the alleged brutality of Assad based on two mantras:

1. Bashar Al-Assad’s father’s massacre in Hama in 1982. (No context supplied).
2. Saudi Prince Saud’s [1] opinion that Bashar was being led by his mother to follow his father’s brutal example in Hama (repeated twice in this chapter).

The only other rationale she provides in this chapter dedicated to Syria is shockingly unsustainable and unsustained, that:

”Most predominantly Sunni Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states, backed the rebels and wanted Assad gone.” (p. 450)

Frenemies [2] of the United States

She does not explain here why these states desire this end nor why their desires mean so much to the United States. That is not saying a lot. The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular have no moral credibility as political states at all. Saudi Arabia particularly, has been continuously documented for institutionalised murder, cruelty, injustice, slavery and abuse of women. It is a huge and rigid monarchy, utterly repressive, of women, prisoners and religious differences and presiding over slavery and abject poverty, despite the multi-nodal royal family’s extraordinary oil-wealth. Regarding Qatar, although women can now vote there, they are segregated from most public activity and wear hijabs and similar clothing. It is known as a ‘slave state’ for the way it treats the massive immigrant population who outnumber its own citizens, and is currently the target of a coordinated protest at the treatment of imported workers on the next World Cup.

As well as failing to justify the US alliance with these gulf states, Clinton admits that she knew that those Gulf state NATO allies were channelling arms into the extremist ‘rebels’:

”It wasn’t a secret that various Arab states and individuals were sending arms into Syria.” (p.461)

These war-mongering countries are members of the Arab League. Clinton writes as though she used the Arab League as her negotiating point of departure. The Arab League has very little credibility. It is infamous for its Western stooges. It contains a London-based representative of the so-called Free Syrian Army, but no representative of the Syrian Government.

So it’s no surprise when Clinton says that, “[…] in October 2011, the Arab League demanded a cease-fire in Syria and called on the Assad regime to pull its troops back from the major cities, release political prisoners, protect access for journalists and humanitarian workers, and begin a dialogue with the protestors. “ […] ”Assad nominally agreed to the Arab League plan, but then almost immediately disregarded it.” In December, they ”tried again.”

This time they sent Arab monitors to war-torn Syrian cities. Not surprising either that this did not go down well; it inflamed the situation.

”In late January 2012, the Arab League pulled the observers out in frustration and asked the UN Security Council to back its call for a political transition in Syria that would require Assad to hand over power to a Vice President and establish a government of national unity.” (p. 450.

This bizarre proposal came from Syria’s traditional enemies, backed by the United States which had no business in the area at all! Of course the Syrian government did not comply.

The only sense I can see in such a doomed demand is that it might be massaged by a complicit or ignorant mass media into an excuse to step up international hostilities against Syria. That is in fact what seems to have transpired, with the White House promoting the script.

Ignoring the secular nature of Syrian civil society and government, Clinton uses the sectarian argument familiar to us with the US invasion of Iraq, which was also secular, that the Assad ruling clique is composed of Alawites over a Sunni majority. Although, in passing, she notes that the French engineered this after World War II, but does not say why the US should try to reverse this now and does not say how Syria managed for so long before colonisation and before the United States ever existed. She does not acknowledge the sophisticated tribal nature of Syrian society and, with her very narrow socio-economic philosophical base, would be most unlikely to recognise the value of this. [3] She evidently subscribes to the myth that anything at all is justified in her goal of transforming all polities into capitalist free markets, which the US/NATO call ‘democracies’ – erroneously, in my opinion. [4]

Clinton, Russia and Syria

After reading Clinton’s chapter on Syria, I switched back to an earlier chapter on “Russia: Reset and regression,” seeking a heads up re her view of Russia and found it in this infantilising statement:

“To manage our relationship with the Russians, we should work with them on specific issues when possible, and rally other nations to work with us to prevent or limit their negative behaviour.” (p.228)

Throughout the Syria chapter Clinton describes Russia’s attitude, mostly quoting the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov. Although one senses that Clinton is trying to make herself look good, for me, she only succeeds in making herself look ridiculous, with Lavrov coming off looking like a genius talking to a moron. Look at the following quote, direct from Clinton’s pages:

”The Russians were implacably opposed to anything that might constitute pressure on Assad. The year before, they had abstained in the vote to authorize a no-fly zone over Libya and to take ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians and then chafed as the NATO-led mission to protect civilians accelerated the fall of Qadafi. Now, with Syria in chaos, they were determined to prevent another Western intervention.”

She writes,

”Assad’s regime was too strategically important to them.”

Like, it wasn’t important for the United States too?

And,

"Libya was ‘a false analogy’, I argued in New York. The resolution did not impose sanctions or support the use of military force, focusing instead on the need for a peaceful political transition. Still the Russians weren’t having any of it.”

“I spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov […] I told him we needed a unified message from the international community. Moscow wanted the resolution to be tougher on the rebels than on the regime. Lavrov pressed me on what would happen when Assad refused to comply. Would the next step be a Libya-style intervention?

No, I responded. The plan was to use this resolution to pressure Assad to negotiate. ‘He’ll only get the message when the Security Council speaks with one voice. We have gone very far in clarifying this isn’t a Libya scenario. There is not any kind of authorization for force or intervention or military action.’

[…] ‘But what is the endgame?’ Lavrov asked.”

Clinton’s dialogue with Lavrov and with the reader reminds me of the dialogue of an addict who swears that this time, when they pick up the drug, it will be different. They say, “Why can’t you trust me? The other times were an unfortunate mistake, but this time I’m not drinking to get drunk or shooting up to get stoned, I’m just doing it for medicinal reasons. Why can’t you understand? Why are you so mean and unreasonable, you bastard!” Clinton sounds immature (co-dependent in psych-speak), arguing on behalf of the Gulf Arabs, manipulated by the people who want to get rid of Assad.

Sovereignty

She reveals that Russia argued to uphold Syria’s sovereignty. That sounds laudable to me after watching Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq implode. Russia’s support of Syrian sovereignty appeals to me especially in the light of activists’ ongoing fight for citizens’ rights to effective self-government in my own country, Australia. Hillary seems oblivious to this human right to self-government. Her counter to Russia’s raising the most important question of Syria’s sovereignty was not to tell the reader her answer to that burning question, but to make an ad hominem attack on Russia, implying that Russia was insincere.

Her first reason was that Russia had sent troops to Georgia. There were good strategic reasons for this, in my opinion. See ”What's in it for Russia? Georgia, Ossetia, & Caspian oil and gas?”. Her second claim, that Russia had ‘sent troops into the Ukraine’ is untrue. They were already there by agreement, in the same way that the US has bases all over the world. There had long been a Russian military base in Crimea. Crimea also had a separate administration from Ukraine. On this matter, Putin has said,

” in my conversations with my foreign colleagues I did not hide the fact that our goal was to ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will. And so we had to take the necessary measures in order to prevent the situation in Crimea unfolding the way it is now unfolding in southeastern Ukraine. We didn’t want any tanks, any nationalist combat units or people with extreme views armed with automatic weapons. Of course, the Russian servicemen did back the Crimean self-defence forces. They acted in a civil but a decisive and professional manner, as I’ve already said."

Putin continues:

"It was impossible to hold an open, honest, and dignified referendum and help people express their opinion in any other way. Still, bear in mind that there were more than 20,000 well-armed soldiers stationed in Crimea.
In addition, there were 38 S-300 missile launchers, weapons depots and rounds of ammunition. It was imperative to prevent even the possibility of someone using these weapons against civilians. [I.e. there was a safety issue.](Source: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/7034)

Clinton had been beating the war drum on Syria for much of her appointment, but had to step down in early 2013, “with the plan to arm the rebels dead in the water […],” she writes, in a gruesome Freudian slip.

Then, in December 2013, there were claims that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons on its citizens. In fact this has never been proven. Russia described the story as a false-flag attack and it is undeniable that the Western media and NATO messages have been suspiciously lax in admitting their failure to effectively document blame. It all sounds like a tragic beat-up similar to the alleged Iraq weapons of mass destruction and the 1990 hoax about Kuwait babies in the incubators which was part of a campaign to launch the Gulf War.

“In June 2013, in a low-key statement, the White House confirmed that it finally felt confident that chemical weapons had indeed been used on a small scale on multiple occasions, killing up to 150 people. The President decided to increase aid to the Free Syrian Army. […]administration officials told the press that they would begin supplying arms and ammunition for the first time, reversing the President’s decision [of] the previous summer.” (p. 465)

So Clinton reveals here that the US began officially supplying weapons against the Syrian government, making war.

Reports of a much bigger chemical weapons event followed in August 2013. Indignant war-making rhetoric increased, despite the ongoing difficulty of proof in assigning guilt. The British parliament failed to give Prime Minister David Cameron permission to use force on Syria. [I.e. invade.] Obama then decided to ask permission of Congress before making any war decisions.

Clinton describes experiencing consternation at these ‘delays’, worrying about US prestige and credibility if they did not go to war, whereas I would have worried about these things if they did go to war on such flimsy pretexts. One senses Hillary, like some circus performer banned from the tent, desperately seeking a way back in to the White House in order to push her views. Finally, she thinks she has found one:

“During this time, I spoke with Secretary Kerry and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about ways to strengthen the President’s hand abroad, especially in advance of this trip later that week to the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, where he’d see Vladimir Putin. Not wanting Putin to be able to hold the contentious Congressional debate over the President, I suggested to Denis that the White House find some way to show bipartisan support ahead of the vote. Knowing that Senator Bob Corker, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was no fan of Putin’s, my advice to Denis was that he be enlisted to help send a message. The idea was to use a routine committee hearing that week to hold a vote on the authorization to use military force that the President would win. Denis, always open to ideas and very familiar with the ways of Congress from his time serving on Capitol Hill, agreed. Working with Corker, the White House got the vote. While not the world’s most significant statement, it was enough to telegraph to Putin that we were not as divided as he hoped. ”

Clinton seems here to see Putin as the real opposition and Syria as an abject pawn in prestige politics, without even a reference to geopolitics or humanitarian pretexts.

She relates that, on September 9, 2013 the new State Secretary, John Kerry, was asked at a London press conference ‘if there was anything Assad could do to prevent military action’.

”’Sure’, Kerry replied, ‘he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week – turn it over, all of it without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done.’”

Clinton goes on to comment:

”Although Kerry’s answer may have reflected conversations he was having with allies and the Russians, it sounded to the world like an offhand remark. A State Department spokesperson downplayed it as ‘a rhetorical argument’. The Russians, however, seized on Kerry’s comment and embraced it as a serious diplomatic offer.”

She gives no credit to Lavrov’s brilliant strategy to rid Syria of chemical weapons. She is clearly disappointed at its other effect which was to remove the excuse that the United States was in danger of using to openly enter war against Syria.

Lemonade out of lemons (!) What an analogy for calling off a war!

Whilst attending another event at the White House that day, she was invited to a briefing in the Oval office:

”I told the President that if the votes for action against Syria were not winnable in Congress, he should make lemonade out of lemons and welcome the unexpected overture from Moscow.” [Another Freudian slip about her bizarre lust for war.]

She concludes:

” Just a month later, the UN agency charged with implementing the deal, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was quite a vote of confidence. Remarkably, as of this writing, the agreement has held, and the UN is making slow but steady progress dismantling Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal, despite extraordinarily difficult circumstances. There have been delays, but more than 90 percent of Syria’s chemical weapons had been removed by late April 2014.”

Again, no acknowledgement of Lavrov’s contribution to peace.

Towards the end of the chapter she notes that in January 2014,

“For the first time, representatives of the Assad regime [in fact it was a legitimate government; ‘regime’ is a propaganda word] sat down face-to-face with members of the opposition. But talks failed to produce any progress. The regime refused to engage seriously on the question of a transitional governing body, as mandated by the original agreement, and their Russian allies stood faithfully behind them. Meanwhile the fighting on the ground continued unabated.”

To me this insistence on the idea that a legitimate government will step down and allow foreign powers to replace it with a synthetic government of their choice is simply incorrigible on the part of Hillary Clinton and those who think like her. It is this lack of respect for sovereignty and self-government and the willingness to engage in international shoot-outs in a high-handed approach to the rest of the world that makes the United States a terrorist in its own right and Bashar al-Assad a hero for standing up to them.

This view of Assad as a hero is greatly supported by the extraordinary fervour and happy enthusiasm with which over 73% of Syrians[5] went to vote in the scheduled Syrian elections in May 2014, voting Bashar in by 88.7%. These elections were scheduled within the constitution and it would have been highly problematic if they had not gone ahead, but the government received no recognition for this from the US/NATO and aligned press. This was the first election where there was actually a choice of candidates, which was another part of the Assad Government’s undertaking to the people. Although some rebel-held regions were not able to vote because the anti-government forces prevented them from participating, the turn-out was still remarkable. [Contrast with the 42% turn-out in Libya which has been reduced to a ghastly shambles by US/NATO.][5] Shamefully, expatriates were also prevented from voting in several NATO countries, including the United Arab Emirates, France, and countries where Syrian embassies and consulates had been closed down, such as Turkey, Australia and the United States. But SBS Australia reports that “Ninety-five per cent of Syrians living overseas have voted in the presidential election at 43 embassies worldwide.” Where expatriates could vote, they voted in legion, carrying flags and posters indicating their support for Assad. Many of them filmed and photographed the event to show the world how they felt. Scenes of expatriates voting in Lebanon show them thronging the streets. Apparently Lebanese authorities had greatly underestimated the turnout and ran out of printed ballots. Foreign observers of the election reported this as their impression on the ground, in an hour-long testimony and report at a UN news-conference. The possibility of individuals voting more than once was also discussed and shown to be unlikely. Other forms of fraud were reckoned no more than in most elections and insignificant within the massive return for Bashar. Unfortunately this UN report received almost no coverage because Michele DuBach, Acting Deputy Director-News & Media Operations, cut off the webcast after 5 minutes. You can see it here.

Such problems with coverage of a world event with implications for many lives show what Syria is up against in terms of the NATO propaganda machine. The fact that there has been almost no positive reporting of these remarkable elections from the NATO machine and the Western Press shows how hollow their support really is for self-government and self-determination. In fact, political self-determination is antithetical to the free market.

Finally I am left wondering whether Hillary Clinton really does not understand the energy resources at stake in the Caspian and Middle Eastern region, which are the principal attraction for the US and NATO. And, with regard to the ‘democracy’ and ‘development’ issues her side claims to promote, can she actually be ignorant of the historical role of the West in colonising this region and of the subsequent fight for independence by the countries which the US-NATO forces have been ripping apart? Can she really not understand that Russia and the former Soviet Union countries all have a role to play in the region and hold different but entirely valid values and institutions from those of the West? I could not perceive in her chapter on Syria awareness or sympathy or human awe at the ancientness of Syria, nor any appreciation its continued unity and function in the face of NATO-backed jihad monsters, a testimony to the strength of its tribal basis and secular overlay. Although she admits at the beginning of her chapter that the Syrian government had substantial national support, she subsequently fails to inform readers of the fact that the Assad Government has succeeded in protecting the majority of its population. Nor does it tell us that the Syrian population had successfully coped for decades with huge numbers of refugees from the surrounding regions, as a result of US/NATO ‘interventions’. This includes 1.3 million refuges from Iraq. Why would so many refugees remain in Syria and marry citizens if it were such a terrible place? Bashar al Assad is not his father, and, anyway, there was a history to his father’s iron will that should be told. As for the streams of refugees leaving the country, did it not occur to Mrs Clinton that many of those people would have been refugees once safely harboured in Syria? Nor does she tell her readers about the free education and hospital systems and the national banking system. The United States’ open-market agenda disapproves of this kind of political institution and when it talks of bringing democracy to Syria, we must understand that it means to break down those institutions, just as it did to similar ones in Iraq and Libya.

I hastened to finish this article today, 27 June 2014, after hearing that "President Obama is seeking approval from Congress to approve $500m to train and equip what he described as "moderate" Syrian opposition forces. The funds would help Syrians defend against forces aligned with President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said."[6]

I can only think with despair at the betrayal by the United States of all those Syrians who ran, walked and drove with such enthusiasm and dedication to their democratic cause and to stop the war and who asked to be left to solve their problems alone. America has become a parody of all it claims to represent and would chase its own shadow to hell, mistaking it for some foreign enemy.

NOTES

[1] “Frenemies” is a term used by Max Keiser in the Keiser Report where he referred to the situation in the Middle East where NATO and its allies were aligned through the sense that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, although few of them really respect each other. They are ‘frenemies’. Unfortunately I cannot seem to locate the correct episode for this quote. However, the argument is clear.

[2] Prince Saud has been the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia since 1975.

[3] Europe is also a tribal society, also targeted for disorganisation by US/NATO via the market system, like Syria, like Australia.

[4] Sometimes I find that people assume, from such statements, that I am actually ignorant of the institutionalised cruelty I have described already in this article that flourishes in a number of Muslim states. So it seems necessary to explain here that (a) Syria is a secular state containing a number of religious groups, not just Muslim, and Sharia Law is largely subsumed to French style law, although it is preserved for certain religious minorities as customary law. “The judicial system of Syria remained a synthesis of Ottoman, French, and Islamic laws up until the 1980s. The civil, commercial and criminal codes were primarily based on the French legal practices. Promulgated in 1949, those laws had special provisions sanctioned to limit application of customary law among beduin and religious minorities. The Islamic religious courts continued to function in some parts of the country, but their jurisdiction was limited to issues of personal status, such as marriage, divorce, paternity, custody of children, and inheritance. Nonetheless, in 1955 a personal code pertaining to many aspects of personal status was developed. This law modified and modernized sharia by improving the status of women and clarifying the laws of inheritance.” Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Syria#cite_note-Lib-1 (citing a 1987 Library of Congress article, which seems to be the most up-to-date info on the net at the moment.) (b) There are anthropological reasons for the evolution of gender differences in human societies that have a lot to do with land-tenure and inheritance, which have extreme and inappropriate outcomes in some Middle Eastern tribal societies that have become urbanised. This is very little analysed, unfortunately. (c) I do not condone the abuse of human rights in such societies but I do not think that bombing them or enlisting them to terrorise each other so that some western countries can get unilateral access to their oil reserves is a way of changing this. In fact, reducing such countries to rubble and disorder tends to make this situation worse. (d) I acknowledge that colonialism, old and new in these areas makes them enemies of the West, but I frankly think that the real enemy is free market-law, which will ultimately designate almost everyone who claims civil rights to be a terrorist.

[5] Compare with the turn-out in Ukraine, which for Eastern Ukraine’s (Donesk and Luhansk) was less than 10 percent, and where in most of the other regions, it did not exceed 45 percent of registered voters, with only one oblast in Western Ukraine in excess of 45%. Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-presidential-elections-low-turn-out-poroshenko-declares-victory/5383777

Compare with the turn-out in Libya on 25 June where just 42% of the 1.5mn registered voters turned out, according to the commission’s preliminary estimates. Source : http://www.gulf-times.com/region/216/details/398036/count-under-way-in-libya-vote-clouded-by-deadly-attacks.

Compare with the turn out in the United States: “Voter turnout dipped from 62.3 percent of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 57.5 in 2012. That figure was also below the 60.4 level of the 2004 election but higher than the 54.2 percent turnout in the 2000 election.” Source: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/news/press-releases/2012/11/2012-election-turnout-dips-below-2008-and-2004-levels-number-eligible.

[6] http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2014/06/27/obama-seeks-500m-for-syria-rebels

Despite clear evidence available to any internet user as eye-witness film of pro-Kiev radical junta supporters (called the 'Kiev Government' by western press) setting Odessa’s Trade Union headquarters ablaze after they had blocked the exit, and beating up people who managed to get out, and shooting at the people from the anti-government tent camp who barricaded themselves inside the building, most Western mainstream media is pretending they do not know what actually happened in this Western-backed atrocity. Are they counting on our misplaced respect for mainstream media authority to make us close our eyes? [Candobetter editor's note: Thank you to an alert reader who pointed out the artist's careless mistake in mistaking the Swedish flag for the Ukraine flag, in the illustration. This has been rectified.]

Look at the film below, which is footage of the event. It is really easy to see that people are hurling molotov cocktails and hanging about doing nothing to save the people whom they have barricaded inside the building to which they have set fire. The building has been peacefully occupied by anti-junta people for days, so there is no doubt as to who was targeting whom. The burning remains of a tent they torched outside are also visible. There have also been remarks that police failed to attend when called.

Today's Australian Associate Press (AAP) articles as interpreted by the Fairfax Press and Murdoch organs which own AAP seem to be actively covering up this war-crime. Is it the editors at AAP and the Fairfax Press who are doing the covering up or is this the way that the journalist authors, Michel Moutot and Max Delany, actually reported things in their syndicated article, "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"?[1]

Here is an extract:

'Thousands of pro-Russian protesters have attacked Odessa's police headquarters just days after deadly clashes and a fire there killed dozens of their comrades in what Kiev claimed was a Russian plot to "destroy Ukraine".

Candobetter.net criticism: The vague reference to 'deadly clashes': 'Clash' implies a meeting of equal forces and begs the question of a wholesale atrocity committed by organised forces. Yes, the attack on the union building happened after fights between football-match attenders, but it was much more than street fighting). "Fire there killed dozens of their comrades" allows the confused reader to think that the people fighting for democracy against the junta actually set fire to their own. Use of 'comrades' is probably a gratuitously inflammatory term given the extreme corporate nature of AAP, although the term is current in Ukraine. The uncritical reporting that "Kiev claimed [it] was a Russian plot to destroy Ukraine" fails to reveal that NATO forces are effectively trying to isolate Russia, which is thus at risk of having supplies of food and fuels cut off if they succeed. This is like chaining a bear with its back to the wall and setting some mad dogs on it. What do we expect the bear to do?

AAP's reporting bias here is particularly flagrant in the light that other western media have at least reported what Blind Freddy would say was too obvious to deny:

The Washington Post in "Ukraine suffers deadliest day in months; 34 killed in Odessa" [2] has reported that

"Asked who had thrown the molotov cocktails, pro-Ukrainian activist Diana Berg said, “Our people — but now they are helping them to escape the building.”

The Washington Post also gives more balanced detail of events, reporting that,

"Friday evening, a pro-Ukrainian mob attacked a camp where the pro-Russian supporters had pitched tents, forcing them to flee to a nearby government building, a witness said. The mob then threw gasoline bombs into the building. Police said 31 people were killed when they choked on smoke or jumped out of windows.

In contrast, the AAP sourced article seems soaked in bias:

'The unrest in the southern port city on Sunday threatened a new front in the Ukrainian government's battle against pro-Moscow militants, with an expanded military operation under way in the east against gunmen holding more than a dozen towns.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia was executing a plan "to destroy Ukraine and its statehood".'

The article elevates the leader of the Kiev junta into a respectful authority by referring to him only as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, never mentioning how he gained his position from a violent coup that caused the elected PM to flee and ask Russia for help and which keeps disorder through the use of Nazis.

Frightening Nazi marchers in Kiev

(In a separate article I will be putting up this full length documentary on the Nazi militia in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8-RyOaFwcEw)

'Unrest' is a weasle-word for what is happening in Ukraine. Using the term 'Ukranian government' without qualifications as to its illegitimate origins, and then applying the term 'militants' and gunmen to the ordinary citizens who are asserting their democratic rights against real live Nazis is inexplicable except if AAP intends somehow to benefit from this coup. The 'pro-Russian' adjective is also probably inaccurate for these people, who may not necessarily be pro-Russian, but are against fascism. The Washington Post's use of the term 'mob' for the junta activists is better chosen. Why can't the AAP use the anti-junta civilians term for the brave citizens they have chosen to defend their towns as 'self-defence forces' ?

Why occupy the Union building?

What were pro-democracy, anti-junta people doing holed up in the Union building in Odessa? In many towns in Ukraine ordinary people have taken over government buildings in order to fight what is an obvious foreign-backed, Neo-Nazi facilitated coup.

Ukraine, especially in the East, is highly industrialised and unionised. This is a reason for their being well-informed and for their solidarity. They are workers and the union headquarters are the most obvious place for working people to demonstrate their position vis a vis a junta. The union buildings are also a good symbolic choice to demonstrate as citizens defending their rights rather than as a military force.

NOTES

[1] Source of quotes from Michel Moutot and Max Delany's article were: The Sydney Morning Herald: "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"and The Age: "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"

[2] Simon Denyer and Anna Nemtsova, Ukraine suffers deadliest day in months; 34 killed in Odessa, Washington Post May 2. The Washington Post is owned by Nash Holdings which is owned by Jeff Bezos see: Jeff Bezos

It is perhaps now time for the ABC to stop pussyfooting around with the current government and simply passing on the criminal propaganda from Turkey and the Western powers with whom we are allied. It seems there has been a concerted effort by Western agencies and complicit media organisations to suppress results of investigations on use of sarin gas (chemical warfare) in Syria. Conclusions must be drawn which condemn those Western governments most closely involved in assisting the armed insurgency against the Syrian state, and the enormous destruction of property and lives that has resulted from it.

Letters to Australian ABC's Tony Jones (Lateline), Nick Grimm, and Correspondent's Report

Dear Tony Jones,

I was a little shocked to see the interview you conducted on Thursday’s Lateline with the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davotoglu. While the angle was perhaps predictable, I was am very concerned that by conducting this interview you were providing a high-profile platform for propaganda that presented the Erdogan government in a positive light. Such propaganda was certainly evident, particularly in the minister’s comments about ‘reconciliation’ with Armenians. (7 )

It is I think unlikely that you are unaware of the recent secret recording of Turkish ministers and the consequent YouTube ban which gained global attention. The actual subject of the discussion recorded received much less attention of course, and in fact was actively suppressed in some media. ( A similar divertion of attention from the important details happened with Victoria Nuland’s recorded discussion on plans for the Kiev Coup, as media focussed on her ‘cursory’ dismissal of EU plans)

So it is important to restate here what this discussion, between Davotoglu and the head of Turkish Intelligence and two others, involved. Not only did they talk about how they could assist the foreign jihadis and terrorist groups in their campaign against the Syrian army and government, but they talked about how a ‘false flag’ operation could be carried out, where a few men would attack the Ottoman shrine in Syria and provide the pretext for intervention by the Turkish military.

This is ‘the Turkish Question’ that should have been asked of Davotoglu, along with further examination of the role of the Turkish military and intelligence in assisting Jabhat al Nusra with its assault on the Armenian Syrian town of Kessab. While the Armenian population of Turkey and the diaspora regarded this collusion between Turkey and foreign jihadis against Armenians as an outrage that deserved international condemnation, thanks to a compliant and complicit Western media, the Turkish government has effectively whitewashed and concealed the campaign. In addition there seems to have been wide publicity to a propaganda stunt ‘condolence’ motion to Armenians from the Erdogan government.

It is hard for those of us who support the Syrian government in its fight against the foreign backed insurgency to see this apparent Australian ‘rapprochement’ with Turkey, coinciding with the ANZAC commemorations, as anything other than collusion in the ‘jihad’ against Syria; most Syrians would certainly see it this way.

Even more of concern in recent reports and commentary from the ABC is the complete absence of the shocking revelations in Seymour Hersh’s recent article – The Red line and the Rat line – (3), which reveals the extent of Western cooperation with Turkey in supplying arms to foreign mercenaries from Libya, as well as the role played by Turkish intelligence in ‘arranging’ the False Flag Sarin attack in Ghouta last August. As I wrote to Nick Grimm yesterday (see below), the involvement of MI6 in the gun running operation from Benghazi to support violent Islamist fundamentalists in Syria makes Tony Blair’s recent prognostications on the ‘global threat from Islamist terrorism’ look a little hollow.

It is perhaps now time for the ABC to stop pussyfooting around with the current government and simply passing on the criminal propaganda from Turkey and the Western powers with whom we are allied. As Norman Swann’s interviewee pointed out this morning, the Abbott government failed to acknowledge the ‘anniversary’ of the Armenian genocide this year, and he may well have expanded on his theme had the interview not been promptly finished. It would have been interesting to hear his views on the attack on Kassab. (8 )

Jeremy Salt, an Australian academic resident at Bilkent University in Ankara, has today written an article which details many aspects of the Turkish campaign against Syria; it is compulsory reading, but it is also incumbent on the ABC to properly represent this ‘alternative’ and truthful report to its audience, however uncomfortable that may be. (9)

I append below my email to Nick Grimm, and below that my complaint on the representation of the Syrian Chemical Weapons story by Middle East reporter Matt Brown. At the base are links to relevant articles, particularly those of Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books.

with regards,

David Macilwain.

Letter to Nick Grimm

- To Nick Grimm:

Yesterday I sent this letter of complaint to a number of reporters and presenters at the ABC, regarding the misleading and erroneous claims about Syrian Chemical Weapons use made by Matt Brown last week on Correspondent’s Report.

Given your recent involvement in some reports on the region I thought you might like to read it, and particularly the articles I have linked to by Seymour Hersh.

I won’t comment in detail about your report on Tony Blair’s speech on Thursday, beyond saying that I reject totally everything that this war criminal stands for, and regard his ‘analysis’ and views as the most dangerous and misleading propaganda. If you read the second Hersh article, published last week in the London Review of Books, you will find ample evidence to back up this viewpoint. While Tony Blair may not have been personally involved in the joint CIA/MI6 gun running operation from Benghazi to Turkey to supply Islamist terrorists fighting in Syria, MI6 has been operating in Eastern Libya since before Blair’s time.

I am very disappointed that the ABC has joined other corporate media organisations in providing a platform for this man’s dirty work.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s3991409.htm

Letter to Correspondent's Report re rebroadcast of Matt Brown's outdated report

Below is my letter to Correspondent’s Report:

I am writing to express my serious concerns over your rebroadcasting of Matt Brown’s report comparing life in Middle Eastern war zones with life in Sydney, on Easter Sunday.

http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2013/s3858333.htm

When this was first broadcast, a little over a month after the Sarin ‘attack’ in Damascus of August 21st last year, some of the assertions made by Matt Brown on ‘evidence’ for the origin of the missiles allegedly carrying Sarin were still a subject of debate and contentious claims, even though the conclusion – that Syrian forces had fired them – was dismissed by all serious and impartial observers.

Some things have changed since then however.

Firstly all the prognostications about missile trajectories, based on two alleged Sarin carrying rockets examined by the OPCW inspectors, have been reduced to a single conclusion which exonerates the Syrian army as the responsible agent. Only one of the two missiles examined was found to be contaminated with Sarin – the one in Joubar east of the capital centre, and this was of a type which various authorities have agreed had a maximum range of 2 kilometres; it cannot have been fired from a government controlled area.

Secondly, in evidence revealed to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh by his contacts in the US intelligence community, the claims of the White House that Syrian rebel groups lacked any access to Sarin have been shown not only to be false but to be lies – the White House had been told by its agencies that rebel groups – Al Nusra in particular – had access and ability to deploy Sarin, and were present in East Ghouta at the time of the alleged attacks. (1) Further weight was added to this case by the testimony of two weapons experts in the US. (2)

Despite repeated efforts by international commentators and authorities who oppose the Western campaign for ‘regime change’ in Syria to get Hersh’s vital information disseminated in the Western media, Western audiences remain in the dark about what has really been going on in Syria. (6 ) It would appear that there has been a concerted effort by Western agencies and complicit media organisations to suppress this evident truth, and the inevitable consequences – conclusions must be drawn which condemn those Western governments most closely involved in assisting the armed insurgency against the Syrian state, and the enormous destruction of property and lives that has resulted from it.

Seymour Hersh’s article ‘Whose Sarin’, published in the London Review of Books in December, was only the first part of the ‘story’ however. In the LRB edition of April 17th, available online ten days earlier, his second part – ‘The Red line and the Rat line’ – answered the question posed in the first – that the Sarin evidently ‘belonged’ to Turkey, who had assisted jihadist groups in a ‘False Flag’ operation in East Ghouta with the object of breaching Obama’s ‘red line’ and provoking US military intervention in Syria. (3) As such, this operation was nearly successful, had it not been for the intervention of Russia which had clearly stated that an attack on Syria constituted an attack on Russia. The voting down of support for the attack in the UK parliament was also critical in stalling what would have been a catastrophic attack and a subsequent major regional conflict. Respected journalist for the Independent, Patrick Cockburn has written about Hersh’s further information – which included some major exposing of the CIA’s arms running operation from Benghazi to SE Turkey. (4)

This has however been practically the only exposure in the mainstream Western media of something that is common knowledge in the intelligence community. Of particular significance in the story is the analysis of Sarin samples from Damascus by Porton Down in the UK, which verified these as not of the type in Syrian government stocks – those currently being removed by the OPCW. No such analysis was acknowledged as performed by the OPCW team, despite its clear significance, and no questions were asked by Western press or agencies; the Porton Down analysis however, conducted on samples taken by Russian officials on the ground in Damascus, was taken very seriously by UK and US intelligence agencies, and the information was apparently communicated to the White House – to no effect.

Substance of complaint

So this brings me to the substance of my complaint.

Not only has the case against the Syrian government over the use of Chemical Weapons ‘against its own people’ been completely destroyed, even for those who originally believed it responsible, but a vile conspiracy by the ‘Syrian Opposition’ in Turkey has been exposed. In addition this has come at a time when Turkey has shown renewed ‘interest’ in supporting the insurgency through its corridor in the Lattakia area, where foreign islamist fighters are being assisted in a new push against the Syrian army. At the same time the US has been making moves to supply new anti-tank missiles to the jihadists, assisted by the Saudis.

Just last week there were also new reports of ‘Chemical Weapons attacks’ from Hama and Aleppo in the north – reports spread by Opposition activists and Western media particularly in the US, but which have little credibility. They follow on far more credible claims by Syria’s UN representative, from Syrian intelligence monitoring, that more false flag chemical attacks were being planned by Turkey. (5)

On the day that Correspondent’s Report re-broadcast Matt Brown’s ‘report’ – Easter Sunday – a group of people including Australians were visiting Syria on a ‘Peace Pilgrimage’, to promote the huge efforts in Syria for peace and reconciliation. To those who listened to this report, and believed its completely false narrative, such a pilgrimage might seem farcical and blinkered; the opposite is the case. A new spirit is being born in Syria, with many former fighters against the government now accepting amnesty and joining in the fight against the foreign backed jihadists. The Syrian army has also made great gains in liberating areas occupied by these barbarians, where local populations are trapped as human shields.

At this time, when slowly peace and recovery could take hold in Syria and refugees can begin to return, that Western governments and their supportive media organisations should be fighting to keep stoking the fire is beyond disdain and belief, particularly when such an effort is still couched in terms of ‘bringing democracy and peace to the Syrian people’.

As far as a formal complaint is concerned, I would like to know who was responsible for the decision to rebroadcast Matt Brown’s highly misleading and outdated propaganda piece. I would also like to know what action will be taken to ensure that ABC foreign correspondents are properly informed by having access to information outside the narrow and one-sided US narrative that dominates our media.

In addition I would like full discussion and exposure of the issues raised in ‘The red line and the Rat line’ on ABC Current Affairs.

yours etc,

David Macilwain

NOTES

(1) http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

(2) http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/01/15/5488779/new-analysis-of-rocket-used-in.html?storylink=addthis#.Ute6sbgLS0s.twitter&rh=1

(3) http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mi6-the-cia-and-turkeys-rogue-game-in-syria-9256551.html

(5) http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-destruction-and-murder-funded-by-foreign-forces-mother-agnes-mariam/5373684

(6) http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=751:an-awkward-silence-burying-the-hersh-revelations-of-obama-s-syrian-deceit&catid=51:alerts-2013&Itemid=202

(7) http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3991820.htm
(video interview with Ahmet Davotoglu in Ankara)

(8 ) http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/turkey-and-the-armenian-genocide/5409248

(9) http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/6002/21/Turkey%E2%80%99s-very-own-Sun-King-.aspx

By Jay Tharappel, 6 April 2014. Originally published on SyriaNews. According to Michael Karadjis' latest article published on the 17th of February titled 'Assad Regime Responsible for Rise in Religious Sectarianism', it is the secular Syrian government that is responsible for the rise in sectarianism, and not the actual bloodthirsty insurgents of all factions who have earned an international reputation for their sectarian brutality.

The main theme of Karadjis' article is his argument that the sectarian hatred endemic among most, if not all rebel factions, is primarily a predictable outgrowth of the over-representation of Alawis in the Syrian government. He refers to the Syrian state as a "family run" "Alawite regime", which is nothing more than a lazy cliché that serves to transform the story of a complex nation and its political history into a generic caricature that ultimately serves imperial interests. There are many who support the so-called revolution who wouldn't go this far, or who would at least balance this viewpoint with an emphasis on the heavy funding provided to the insurgency by the Saudi & Qatari regimes, or the vicious propaganda of oil-money sponsored Salafi clerics calling for Bilad ash-Sham (the Levant) to be cleansed of religious minorities. According to Karadjis these explanations are peripheral as it's the "Alawite dominated" regime that supposedly constitutes the original source of sectarianism.

Karadjis begins by citing an argument by Gilbert Achcar who contends that if, hypothetically, the Copts in Egypt dominated the state, then one would naturally expect to see Muslim extremism thriving. This ignores the obvious reality that despite NOT dominating the state, the Coptic community have for decades been the victims of Islamist terrorism, including violent pogroms, kidnappings, and the destruction of churches. Such an abysmal analytic failure on Achcar's part is to be expected given his reactionary politics, as exemplified in 2011 when he supported the NATO bombing of Libya and the racist anti-Gaddafi death-squads.

According to Karadjis, the insurgent-led campaign of hatred and violence against Alawis is the government's fault because it's dominated by sectarian Alawis, although the evidence he provides for this claim is pathetically weak. He begins by pointing out that Alawis are overrepresented in the government. His evidence for this is a chart, provided by the Washington Institute for Near East policy – a U.S. think tank with a board of advisors that includes prominent Zionist Joseph Lieberman, and war criminals such as Richard Perle, Condoleeza Rice, and Henry Kissinger. The chart, in Karadjis' mind, is a "map of the regime", although it doesn't actually specify what exactly is being mapped. Is it the sectarian composition of the Syrian cabinet, or the military, or the business elite, or any other institution? No, it doesn't provide any categories, it's nothing more than a collection of some but not all military figures, cabinet ministers, and business people.

On the basis of this incomplete information, Karadjis arrives at the laughable conclusion that Alawis, who are "some 10-15 per cent of the population, occupy some 72 per cent of the regime", while Sunnis, who are "some 75-80 per cent of the population, occupy under 16 per cent of the regime".

This has got to be most incompetent and lazy demographic analysis about Syria ever produced, and it could be dismissed simply by arguing that the chart provided by this U.S. think-tank (controlled by war criminals) doesn't specify what it's mapping. However it is possible to go a step further and provide data regarding the sect-based composition of Syria's cabinet. See what I did there? I actually specified what I'm mapping – in this case the Syrian cabinet.

According to data featured in the book 'The Struggle for Power in Syria' (1995) by Nikolaos Van Dam, the aggregate percentage-wise sect composition of successive Syrian cabinets between 1970 (when Hafez Al Assad came to power) and 1995 (when the book was written) are as follows:

• Sunni: 68.37 percent
• Christian: 7.14 percent
• Alawi: 20.41 percent
• Druze: 4.08 percent

Sure, Alawis appear over-represented by up to 8 percentage points above their proportion of the total population (12 percent), but there's a huge difference between Alawis being 20.41 percent of cabinet ministers (over a period of 25 years) and Karadjis' assertion that Alawis "occupy 72 percent of the regime", which he bases on entirely misleading data. Additionally, if the figures for the period 1970-1976 are taken alone, Sunnis are shown to have comprised 81.18 percent of total cabinet ministers, which suggests a high degree of variability for reasons that could be entirely random as it would be unreasonable to expect a parliament to be proportionally representative (in terms of sect) of the population all the time, especially when parliamentary seats aren't allocated on a confessional basis like in neighboring Lebanon.

Unfortunately this data exists only up until 1995, but there's no reason to imagine the situation would have been any different under President Bashar Al Assad's administration. In any case the reason why such data is difficult to acquire is because in Syria, religion is considered a personal affair and as such politicians are unlikely to openly identify themselves by their sect. This cultural norm was actually a hurdle Van Dam faced when compiling his data on the sect composition of the Syrian cabinet (he told me this in a private conversation). Having dismantled Karadjis' nonsensical claims of Alawi overrepresentation, what he's left with is his own admission, which he doesn't dispute, that "there are a number of top positions occupied by Sunnis". Indeed this is correct, the Prime Minister Wael Al Halqi, the Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, the Defense Minister Fahad Jasem Al Freij, and the Interior Minister Ibrahim Al Shaar, are all Sunnis.

Karadjis' next claim is that "Alawite elements are absolutely dominant within the military and security elements of the regime", and on the basis of this assertion he concludes that "the appointment of a few loyal Sunnis to the officially top positions – defense minister and interior minister – takes on the nature of being largely cosmetic, ceremonial". How does Karadjis know that the positions of defence and interior minister are "cosmetic" and "ceremonial"? Is he actually suggesting that the military overrides the civilian administration, and if so, on what basis does he reach conclusion? Quite frankly what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

It's on the basis of Karadjis' claims of Alawi overrepresentation (which are exaggerated to the point of being qualitatively false) that he concludes that the "regime" is "sectarian", but just because a particular sect is overrepresented in a state's institutions doesn't mean the state actively discriminates on the basis of sect, which is what the label "sectarian" would suggest at the very least. Bottom line is this. To the extent that Alawis are overrepresented in government, their power doesn't stem from their Alawi heritage, their sect holds no official privileges, and they're not economically better off than other Syrians.

If someone were to argue that because Jews are overrepresented in the U.S. government that they control the U.S. government, I'd pay Karadjis the compliment of assuming that he'd (quite rightly) dismiss this as anti-Semitic propaganda. However it seems he's willing to spout similar drivel to legimitise what is essentially an imperialist proxy war against an independent postcolonial nation.

It seems Karadjis is completely oblivious to the range of historic factors that explain why Alawis are overrepresented in the military. Prior to Syria gaining independence in 1946, families who wished to exempt their boys from military conscription (under the French mandate) would have pay a fee, which many Alawis, being a generally poorer community, couldn't afford to pay. Moreover many considered it a lucrative career option because the military in their eyes was one of the few meritocratic institutions they could join to get ahead in life, and one where they wouldn't be discriminated against because of their beliefs. According to former President Hafez Al Assad's biographer Patrick Seale, "young men from minority backgrounds made for the army in droves rather than for other professions because their families did not have the means to send them to university" (p. 38).

What's more striking about the post-independence origins of the modern Syrian Arab Army isn't the overrepresentation of any particular sect, rather its class character. After independence, young men from poorer rural backgrounds began swelling the ranks of the army whereas their urban counterparts were more likely to serve their two year term in the military before returning to more profitable careers in the cities. This according to Seale was the "historic mistake of the leading families and of the mercantile and landowning class to which they belonged: scorning the army as a profession, they allowed it to be captured by their class enemies who then went on to capture the state itself" (p. 39). For someone who loves talking about class, Karadjis is unable or unwilling to recognise the elitist origins of anti Alawi sectarianism.

Karadjis desperate attempts to try and blame the "Alawite regime" for sectarianism ignores the enormous Wahhabi elephant in the room, which is that for nearly a century, the most divisive and puritanical forms of political Islam were cultivated as a tool of American and British foreign policy. These forces were originally mobilised to counteract the forces of secular leftist Arab nationalism, which dominated the post-colonial zeitgeist, capturing the imagination of the Arab masses, who were drawn more towards Nasserism, Baathism, and Communism than towards religious metanarratives.

Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons in 1921 said of the Wahhabis of the Arabian Gulf "they hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children". While he was shocked at their cultural practices, Churchill recognised the need to cultivate a close relationship with the House of Saud writing in 1953, "my admiration for [Ibn Saud] was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us" (from 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam' by Mark Curtis, 2012, p. 12).

Similarly the Muslim Brotherhood emerged in Egypt in 1928 promoting the slogan "the Qur'an is our constitution", and advocating the restoration of Islam to the alleged purity of its historic origins. Their founding leader, Hassan Al Banna, collaborated closely with King Farouk who often used the Brotherhood's paramilitary wing to terrorise the political enemies of the Egyptian monarchy, primarily secular leftists, nationalists, communists, and even bourgeois liberals like the Wafd Party (Ibid, p. 22-23).

After all why wouldn't they? The Brotherhood ultimately represented the interests of the landed elites and merchant classes, and to the extent that they preached social justice, their policies extended merely to calling on the rich to provide for the poor, a position far removed from the democratic, redistributive, and socialist tendencies that defined their secular leftist opponents.

Meanwhile, the Brotherhood's counterparts in Syria always clashed with the post-Baathist state for entirely reactionary reasons. In 1964, just a year after the Baath party had seized power, and six years before Syria's first Alawi President Hafez Al Assad came to power (admittedly, Salah Jadid, an Alawi, became the defacto leader in 1966), the Muslim Brotherhood began their first insurrection, and for what reason? According to Seale it began in the souks (bazaars or marketplaces) with "prayer-leaders, preaching inflammatory sermons against the secular, socialist Baath", that the anger stemmed from "merchants, dreading the inroads of Baathist radicalism", and that "country notables resented the rise of the minority upstarts and their humble Sunni allies" (from Patrick Seale's book 'Asad', 1995, p. 92).

The Hama elites backing the Brotherhood associated the Baathists with peasant uprisings, especially since prior to the land-reforms that followed the 1963 coup, four extremely wealthy (Sunni) families owned 91 of the 113 villages in the Hama region (Seale, 1995, p. 42). To quote Seale, for the new Baathist rulers, "the city had long been a symbol of oppression for the rural poor – the background of so many of them – and a stronghold of Sunni conservatism, but now they came to loathe it as a centre of malevolent reaction, an irredeemable enemy of everything they stood for" (Seale, 1995, p. 94). In 1973 when the Syrian constitution was modified to remove a clause requiring that the office of President must be held by a Muslim, the Brotherhood responded with violent protests. There you have it – reactionary. Every. Single. Time.

Included in Karadjis' Alawi-phobic conspiracy is the claim that the Makhlouf family (who are President Assad's cousins) "control some 40-60 per cent of the Syrian economy". This claim was originally made in The Telegraph on May 2011, "the president's first cousin [Rami Makhlouf] is thought to have control of over 60 per cent of the Syrian economy". However the absurdity of this claim is evidenced by its sheer ambiguity. What does it mean to "control" a certain percentage of an economy? How is this quantified? Does it mean Rami Makhlouf (or the Makhlouf family as Karadjis alleges) has a net worth amounting to anywhere between 40 and 60 percent of Syria's GDP? Well no, that doesn't make any mathematical sense because Makhlouf is reported to be worth $5 billion, which is roughly 6 percent of Syria's GDP. Does it mean that Makhlouf owns stakes in a large number of enterprises? If so, how can the 40-60 percent claim be quantified?

The point here isn't to defend Makhlouf, who to be sure has a reputation for corruption and nepotism, rather to highlight how tenuous claims like this are used, by the likes of Karadjis and the rest of the Imperial-Left, to make sweeping and facile generalisations about the Syrian economy. In the interests of balance it's worth mentioning that although Syria has the fourth lowest per-capita GDP when compared with its fellow Arab states, it ranks third highest in life expectancy (at around 74 years) beaten only by the oil rich emirates Qatar and the UAE (from Google's public data bank sourced from the World Bank). A rather impressive feat for a sanctioned nation with very little oil, a nation that manages to punch above its weight (i.e. income level) when it comes to objective measures of human development like healthcare and education.

One only has to view the U.S. State Department's '2011 Investment Climate Statement' on Syria, which reads as a list of complaints about the Syrian economy for not being accommodating enough to capitalist interests, to realise that the simplistic portrayal, by Karadjis and his ilk, of the Syrian economy as some kind of neoliberal wasteland is grossly misleading. The Statement notes that "despite recent legislative attempts at reform, the economy remains largely centrally planned"; that "Syria's labor laws are generally considered an impediment to foreign investment"; and that "government officials publicly reject the notion of privatizing state enterprises on ideological grounds". On that last point, the state sector still contributes roughly 40 percent of Syrian GDP according to Bassam Haddad's 2011 report titled 'The Political Economy Of Syria: Realities And Challenges'.

Karadjis alleges that "the regime early on set up sectarian Alawite militias (the Shabiha) to terrorise specifically Sunni populations" although the three examples he cites to support this point, i.e. Houla, Bayda and Banyas, are ALL proven false flag attacks that were actually carried out by the so called "revolutionaries" the Imperial-Left love so much. The original Houla massacre story blaming the government was debunked by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The Bayda and Banyas massacres, also originally blamed on the Syrian government, have also been challenged. Very briefly, the Bayda massacre's most well-know victim, Sheikh Omar Biassi, was a member of the National Reconciliation Committee, and an advocate of inter-faith dialogue and national unity. He was a government supporter who was on the record saying, "we believe that resolving the crisis in Syria, which was safe and stable, will be done by dialogue, for the ship with its captain Bashar al-Assad to reach safety". A month prior to the massacre that claimed him he referred to the insurgents as "traitors" and that "the only solution" was to "kill them". On the 2^nd of May himself and 35 other members (36 in total) of his extended family were massacred. The government had no reason to kill him but the insurgents most certainly did. For a thorough debunking of this false flag operation, see 'Media Disinformation and Coverup of Atrocities Committed by US Sponsored Syria Rebels' by Adam Larson.

As for the "Tremseh massacre" which Karadjis brings up, it was alleged by "activists" (i.e. FSA sympathisers) in Hama that Syrian forces massacred 200 people, mostly civilians, although on closer inspection the majority of those killed were insurgents, not civilians. According to UN monitors, "The attack on Tremseh appeared targeted at specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists". Guardian columnist Martin Chulov noted that "of 103 fatalities recorded by opposition sources, all are male"; and according to the New York Times, "although what actually happened in Tremseh remains murky, the evidence available suggested that events on Thursday more closely followed the Syrian government account". Far from being a sectarian massacre against Sunnis as Karadjis alleges, the Battle of Tremseh was essentially "a lopsided fight between the army pursuing the opposition and activists and locals trying to defend the village".

Karadjis' coverage of these massacres (except for Tremseh) was intended to strengthen his argument that the worst atrocities have been committed by the government, although the massacres at Houla, Bayda and Banyas, which Karadjis blames on the government, were actually perpetrated by the very insurgents he praises as "revolutionaries". If we include the Latakia massacre of two-hundred civilians carried out by ISIS which Karadjis admits, that means the worst atrocities presented in his article were committed by the insurgents, not the state.

Here's a major difference between the two sides that Karadjis willfully ignores.

Even in cases of alleged crimes by state forces, every effort is made by the state to downplay or deny them as it is considered shameful, where the "revolutionaries" not only commit sectarian atrocities, they brag about them openly.

The bottom line is this. When it comes to sectarianism, there is no moral equivalence between the Syrian state and the NATO-Saudi-Qatari sponsored insurgents.

The leadership of the two most prominent insurgent fronts, namely ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra, are openly sectarian, while the front touted by the west as "moderate" is led by Zahran Alloush who openly calls for Syria to be ethnically cleansed of "Rafida" (a reference to Shias and by extension Alawis). In Alloush's own words: "The mujahideen of Sham will wash the filth of the Rafida and the Rafidia from Sham, they will wash it forever, if Allah wills it, until they cleanse Bilad al-Sham from the filth of the Majous who have fought the religion of Allah".

To suggest that parallels can be found on the side of the Syrian state, let alone to argue that the state is the source of sectarianism, is monumentally absurd, but Karadjis, being the loyal servant of U.S. imperialism that he is, manages, through incredible displays of mental gymnastics, to spin exactly such a tale.

The war in Syria has entered its fourth year, yet “Human Rights Watch” and its executive director, Kenneth Roth effectively campaign for its prolongation. This article initially published on the AMRIS pages at http://australiansforreconciliationinsyria.org/kenneth-roth-and-human-rights-watch-campaigners-for-war-and-terror-in-syria/

HRW avoids informing us of the extent of the suffering of ordinary Syrian people at the hands of 1,000 or more militant groups, many of them dominated by foreign fighters. It is well-known that Al-Qaeda and similar groups operate in Syria and that quite a few Australians have been caught up in the violent extremism in Syria. However, HRW rarely relates the personal stories of terror victims.

Instead it focuses principally on the alleged crimes of the Syrian government, thus fomenting more outrage against the government and the country’s president, outrage which could muffle protest in the west if America or another country carries out a military strike against Syria.

In December 2013, there was information slowly emerging in the media about radical groups attacking Adra, a workers’ town on the outskirts of Damascus. Even the ABC reported that a ‘savage massacre had been committed’.

The video above has a distressing scene of a beheading at the start, which was  filmed at the castle Krak des Chavalier in the Wadi al Nasra (Valley of the Christians) region. However, after 5:40 minutes, the remainder of the video is witness testimony from people who escaped Adra after it was  besieged by Jabhat al-Nushra fighters.

Armed men have been in control of parts of Adra for some months now and more information is coming out about the degree of that savagery. For example, one witness has related the harrowing story of a mother, mute, as she watched fighters playing with the heads of her recently executed children. There is another account of how women were dragged naked in the street. One witness said one of them had had one of her legs cut off.  Doctors and nurses in a clinic were reportedly killed. Workers in a bakery were thrown alive into the bakery’s ovens.

As children were not spared in Adra, a father and mother chose to detonate grenades in their home so they and their two young children would not face the savagery of the jihadis at their door.  It has also been reported that children have been thrown from roofs to stop the army’s advance.

When the horrors of Adra were first being reported, HRW was asked for a response. The HRW spokesperson explained it was ‘very difficult to get accurate information’ about Adra to know who was responsible for the abuses, so she could not comment.

Although some of the above stories about Adra come from Western journalists in Syria, I can find no evidence that HRW has written a report on Adra or condemned those who have perpetrated massacres there.

A 24th March 2014 HRW report is titled, “Syria: Unlawful Air Attacks Terrorize Aleppo”.  It focuses on what it terms “the indiscriminate nature of the government’s large-scale air campaign on opposition-held parts of Aleppo”.  The condemnation of the government is strong: “For three years the Syrian government has declared open season on civilians with almost no consequences”.  There are a couple of very slight references to ‘armed groups’ in the report which are almost completely lost in the report’s onslaught against the government. There are no personal stories of the victims of terrorist groups. The word ‘terrorize’ is used in reference to the Syrian government only.  It would shock those who rely on HRW to inform them about events in Syria that a Syrian archbishop has recently declared, “Western leaders are screwing all Syrians by supporting terrorists”.

Ironically, this most recent HRW report came out just a day after an article in the Armenian Weekly appeared:  “Two Thousand Kessab Armenians Find Safety in Latakia”  It presents the story of the people of Kessab, a town near the Turkish border.  In this case, people have fled the terror of Al-Qaeda affiliated armed groups which had crossed into Syria from Turkey.

Image from “The Armenian Weekly”

HRW has detailed one massacre committed by ‘rebels’.  Around two hundred villagers, mostly women and children, in the province of Latakia were slaughtered in early August 2013, and about the same number were abducted. HRW reported on this massacre in October, two months after it occurred: “You Can Still See Their Blood”.

It is fair, therefore, to contend that HRW is unwilling to educate the world about the fearsome savagery of the extremist groups operating in Syria. There is little sign that it condemns either the extremist clerics who incite hatred and violence or those that fund the Islamist extremists and/or insurgents prepared to commit acts of terror.  Moreover, except in its report on the massacre in Latakia, it mostly avoids directly condemning countries which enable foreign jihadis to cross the border into Syria. What should be noted is that HRW does not declare that people or countries should stop supporting the insurgency in Syria. After reporting the massacre and abductions in in Latakia, HRW, states in its report: “Support for these five groups should continue to be withheld until the groups stop committing these crimes and those responsible are fully and appropriately held to account.” (I emphasize ‘until’.)

HRW informants include ‘opposition activists’ who claim that the army or pro-regime militias have committed atrocities.  I would contend that rather than being activists for peace as we in the west might expect, these are people who are often involved directly in the insurgency against the Syrian government. They are partisan players and their claims are the fuel for an ongoing war; hence, they should be investigated thoroughly.

Last year in Damascus, I recorded an interview with genuine Syrian peace activists from a group called “The Third Current”. They neither support the government nor the militarized opposition.  Their mentor was once a political prisoner, but these activists choose to support the Syrian army, telling me that “the collapse of the national army, despite its mistakes, would result in the collapse of the country and state, similar to (or worse than) Iraq.”  (For recorded interview with Syrian peace activists, go to bottom of this page on ‘Socrates and Syria’)

Other informants that HRW relies on are refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Again these people almost invariably make accusations against the government and there is no suggestion by HRW that it should question their veracity, or that it should rigorously examine what might motivate some refugees to make them.  For example, are the refugees also fighters or related to fighters?  Do they support the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria? If so, what are they prepared to compromise for their beliefs?  Or do they make claims out of fear? This human story of war is not told by HRW.  Kenneth Roth and his colleagues present a black and white picture of the Syrian conflict.

Kenneth Roth’s wife, Dr Annie Sparrow, was interviewed on ABC radio towards the end of last year. She presented the testimonies of refugees on the Syrian Turkish border who condemned the actions of the Syrian government. Being an Aussie and being a doctor, no doubt she would have had a captive audience.  She made many outrageous claims.  But whose ‘truth’ did she present?  In her interview, Dr Sparrow doesn’t refer to claims about the rape of women and girls in refugee camps, or about the trafficking of human organs (something I heard discussed in Syria in May 2013).   In the west, who is determining the discourse on Syria?

Images taken from Syrian TV.  The young boy was filmed after a car bomb in Damascus. The Damascus University students in the center were at a vigil in March 2013 for 15 College of Architecture students killed by a ‘rebel’ mortar attack on the university.  The mother in the bottom picture is at a funeral service for her young daughter, Vanessa, who was killed along with other students when their school bus was hit by a ‘rebel’ mortar in Damascus in November 2013.  (See BBC report below showing Vanessa’s coffin being taken to an Armenian church in Damascus)

It  is possible to pursue the truth in Syria with integrity. I believe some foreign journalists have done this, for example, in regards to the Houla massacre and another massacre in Aqrab.

Syria burns and its people continue to suffer. In the meantime, most politicians, journalists, and NGOs in the west choose not to be associated with any stand that could be construed as supportive of the Syrian government. They dare not.

By not taking a much stronger condemnatory stand against the armed groups in Syria and their supporters, HRW not only jeopardizes the lives of millions of people in Syria and the region, but it also puts at risk the peace and security of western societies. Exposing extremist ideologies, foreign jihads and armed insurrections is ultimately in everyone’s interest .

Why is HRW so partisan in its stand on Syria?  Is it because one of its most generous donors, George Soros, supports the ‘Arab Spring’ even if it takes decades to settle?  Or is it as crass as Roth and Dr Sparrow wanting more invitations to the White House? Keane Bhatt, another critic of Human Rights Watch, has noted how “HRW’s institutional culture is shaped by its leadership’s intimate links to various arms of the U.S. government“.

Kenneth Roth (L), executive director of Human Rights Watch, and Annie Sparrow (R) arrive at the White House for a state dinner 19, 2011 in Washington, DC. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are hosting resident Hu Jintao for a state dinner during his visit to the United States. (see link above)

Kenneth Roth will be on ABC’s “Q and A” on Monday 31 March.  He purports to present “the truth”.  In regards to the sarin gas attack in Damascus in August 2013, Roth said HRW had done its own investigation, “looking at the facts”.  Long before the UN had concluded its report, HRW declared the government did it!  Its condemnation of the Syrian government was rushed, but timely: it would have provided support for a western military strike against Syria. For most experts the jury is still out on who is responsible for the sarin gas attack, though the evidence points to the ‘rebels’ being responsible.

When information is a weapon of war, ‘the facts’ might not be determined by HRW as easily as Roth suggests. Robert Stuart, a peace activist in Britain, has been investigating for some months now a BBC report of an alleged ‘napalm’ attack against ‘a school’ in northern Syria. His research is rigorous and impressive.  And the BBC is only able to stand by its journalist by not responding to many of Robert Stuart’s questions.

Will Australians defer to Kenneth Roth when he visits?  Will we be intimidated by his ‘facts’ and his title?  As Russia Today interviewer Oksana Boyko did, can we ask Roth hard questions while being respectful?

It may be in the interests of Australia for us to be much more alert to events in Syria and perhaps even to be irreverent occasionally.

27 March 2014

Susan Dirgham

National Coordinator of Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in Syria

Melbourne, Australia

APPENDIX:

1. Human Rights Watch on Syria: Relentless Propaganda  by Tim Anderson and Mazen al-Akhras
https://www.facebook.com/notes/tim-anderson/human-rights-watch-on-syria-relentless-war-propaganda/10151958371906234

2.  Youtube: A young girl recounts how she was raped by ‘rebels’ her father introduced her to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX26cyUV5Pg

3.   Youtube: The suffering and exploitation of young Syrian girls and women in the refugee campshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzpVhW1tXVY

4. Youtube:  A Syrian boy recounts how he was taught to be a sniper, so he kills more than 30 people without any feeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS5WrcvH46c

5.  Youtube:  Two boys are executed by ‘rebels’ http://www.youtube.com/verify_controversy?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DlvCREFBEV5w%26bpctr%3D1380891097

6.  Interview with Aisling Byrne from ‘Conflicts Forum’, the think-tank set up by Alastair Crooke, former member of MI6

7.  Youtube: Refugee Camps in Turkey: Safe Havens for al-Qaeda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fzUTh73Urw

8.  Reuters report: Five killed at blast in Syria refugee camp near Turkey: monitor http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-syria-crisis-turkey-explosion-idUSBREA1J18H20140220

9. VIDEO OF INTERVIEWS, RALLIES OF SUPPORTERS OF al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in Syria – Support shown for an Islamic Caliphate, the killing of Christians and Alawis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8hoVo_Fiu4&feature=player_embedded  

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In Adra, Syria, in parts controlled by the 'rebels', more than 2,500 people have been abducted. No one knows their fate, however, according to reliable reports, scores of women taken hostage are raped and exhibited naked on balconies every day. Children have been thrown from roofs as the army has advanced. Inside we have embedded a video with statements from people who have survived in Adra. The Syrian government may be making some headway, however, against the terror. As reported here in another embedded video, there has been heartening reconciliation and amnesty between 'rebels' and the government in Babbila, Yalda, and Beit Sahem, three country towns in Damascus. Australia should not interfere with Syrian government attempts to restore order. They are Syria's only hope, although you will not hear this in the mainstream news, like the ABC or Murdoch papers.

Shocking crimes of radical groups in Syria

On 22 February 2014, AMRIS members had a SKYPE conversation with Mother Agnes, who was in Damascus at the time. Below is an abridged version of her update on the situation in Syria.[1] This article is a republishing (with thanks) of an AMRIS article by Susan Dirgham, with some additions and changes.

In her update, Mother Agnes refers to the shocking crimes of radical groups in Syria and speaks about their occupation of Adra, a town on the outskirts of Damascus.

The video shows 'rebels' performing public executions at the castle “Krak de Chavalier” in the Wadi al Nasra (Valley of the Christians) region and gives insight into the absence of military rules in the rebels' behaviour. At 5.40 minutes into the video, this horror is replaced by testimonies from people who have escaped Adra, a town besieged by Jabhat al-Nushra. These testimonies support what we have recorded from the skype interview with Mother Agnes Mariam on 22 February 2014.

Syria being ground into dust

In her conversation with AMRIS members via skype on 22 February 2014, Mother Agnes Mariam described how the pace and scale of destruction is accelerating in Syria. She told how Syrian resources were being 'ground into dust'. She said that the people responsible for the destruction appear fearless, making the point that they no longer pretend to justify what they are doing by talking of 'freedom' or 'democracy', because they no longer need to do so. She explained that this is because most of the world's media have normalised the killing and destruction in Syria.

"'Revolution' and fighting against the 'brutal dictator' and the 'Alawite regime' are slogans which have now served their purpose," she said. She added, that "to maintain the status quo of war and terror, however, anything the Syrian government does must be either ignored or completely discredited, and the regime demonized, still."

"Now, even more radical groups are being sent into Syria, and their crimes still shock," Mother Agnes stated.

"I have met survivors from Adra, a large industrial town on the outskirts of Damascus, which used to be an oasis of tranquility and productivity. It’s ‘the working Adra’, a town of workers and government employees. The relative calm of Adra was shattered when it was invaded by armed gangs in December 2013."

This video shows a beheading at the start which was filmed up at the castle “Krak de Chavalier” in the Wadi al Nasra (Valley of the Christians) region. The rest of the video, however, is witness testimony from people who have escaped Adra, a town besieged by Jabhat al-Nushra. These testimonies give credence to the quotes below from Mother Agnes Mariam. If people are troubled by seeing the beheading, start at 5.40 min before viewing.

Middle-aged men who escaped said, “Even in the movies, we had never seen such scary people. It seemed that they were on drugs or under some kind of evil influence,” Mother Agnes reports.

"It is not just one atrocity here and there in Syria which is occurring. The eating of the liver of a soldier last year was not an aberration. In massacres in the villages in Lattakia last year, there was evidence of the roasting and eating of a child. More recently, in Adra, workers in a bakery were thrown into the bakery oven. Those people were not government agents. They were murdered simply because they had chosen to live a normal life and not get involved in politics."

She explains that, "Before the invasion of Adra, many displaced people from besieged areas around Damascus had found sanctuary in this workers’ town. Some of them were activists who spent time making lists of the ‘non-tolerated people’ in Adra: the Alawites, the Christians, the Druze and government employees. They had names and addresses, and so when the militias took over the city they were able to efficiently perpetrate a discriminatory genocide.

Even now, part of Adra remains under the control of the ‘rebels’.

"More than 2,500 people have been abducted. No one knows their fate, however, according to reliable reports, scores of women taken hostage are raped and exhibited naked on balconies every day. Children have been thrown from roofs as the army has advanced."

She said, "I have heard many testimonies of women inside areas held by rebels in different parts of Syria. Many women have been raped and abused. There is nothing normal about war. A mentality can develop which distorts our natural compassion and sense of justice. In these rebel areas, men are encouraged to believe they are ‘lords’ and that whatever they desire can be theirs. When they utter the shaharda – in other words, they say three times “Allah is great” – everything can be theirs: a car, a building, a woman, a child."

Is this to be the future for Syria?

Mother Agnes Mariam said, "Before the siege of Adra, there were many other invasions and sieges, such as that of the old historic city of Homs, where 130,000 Christians used to live. Now almost all the Christians are displaced and their shrines destroyed. This part of Homs was not a military target. It was not taken or invaded after a big battle. There was no oppression in the streets. In February 2012 there was an invasion and today it is a big political story. Fighters say, ‘We are besieged and we are dying’, but in reality, the negotiations of the United Nations have become a safe way for the invading forces to flee."

She described two sources of armed violence:

"In Syria, there are generally two kinds of fighters. Firstly, there are Syrian fighters who took up arms either to protect their families from the perceived or real oppression of some intelligence services; or to simply survive. Those people are willing to enter into negotiations."

The other kind of fighter does not want to negotiate:

"However, the second category of fighter works under the international coalition that is intent on dismantling Syria. As more and more Syrian rebels are noting, these international forces and the fighters sponsored by them show neither care for Syria nor care for the well-being of the majority of Syrian people."

"On the other side, as the violence and strife deepens, corruption deepens. It is the human story of war. There are terrible betrayals for money or out of fear."

There is hope

Mother Agnes Mariam related, however, that,

"Parallel with these atrocities, defilement, betrayal, and corruption, you have the reconciliation process. This process is carried out by good-willed people at grass-roots level.

One result of this process is that many local rebels are now convinced that this ‘revolution’ was a Trojan horse, one used by the international alliance to dismantle Syria. Those rebels brought back into the national fold are also the good fuel, the good incentive of this dynamic for reconciliation and peace.

And despite the warlords on the ground who will do anything to prevent reconciliation and peace, this initiative is succeeding. This reality will be difficult to hide outside Syria. Reconciliation is a breakthrough in this darkness and confusion and it continues to gain momentum despite the efforts to create a de facto partitioning of Syria along the lines of Iraq and Libya."

A nation state formed of tribes which need to reconcile

According to Mother Agnes Mariam, one reason for successful reconciliation is that Arab tribes form more than 65% of the Syrian population. A tribe can be composed of 100,000 or two million people, so it becomes a matter of security for the tribe not to have any internal battles. Therefore, tribal leaders willingly enter the reconciliation process for the sake of both their tribe and for the country, as Syrians are generally very nationalistic.

Perception that the New World Order wants to destroy the Syrian nation-state

Mother Agnes Mariam said, "A perspective from Syria today is that there is a New World Order which wants to destroy the nation state. The destruction of the state may be seen to benefit finance, industry or trade control. But the Syrian people believe in their nation; it is the source of their security, their wealth, and their peace."

She believes that the time is ripe for an inter-Syrian reconciliation.

To preserve Syria, however, she believes it is vital that foreign states stop sponsoring foreign fighters to come and fight in Syria.

International community keeps war alive through misleading information

"The battle is a huge one for the people of Syria. They face the hypocrisy of the international community, including the United Nations, the Human Rights Council and some NGOs. The telling of the story of Syria has most often been far from the reality; virtual reports have been created. And despite some improvements, the reality is often still distorted, particularly the overall reality."

Expatriate information 30 years out of date

Mother Agnes Mariam added, "Much of the discourse about Syria has been shaped by the external opposition, mostly composed of people who have not lived in Syria for 30 years. They are effectively waging a war against their version of Syria based on memories dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. The faded memories of these people and their grudges are exploited by forces that wish to destroy another Middle Eastern country."

Non-violent political parties in Syria

She pointed out that, "In contrast to this external opposition and their skewed picture of 21st century Syria, there exists an internal opposition to the Baath Party. This opposition is made up of formal political parties, some in government, some not; as well as informal groups. Prominent members of the internal opposition have experience of regime prisons, however, they maintain a non-violent path toward political change.

"This opposition is ignored by the west," she said.

"To respect it would require governments to back down from their support for a violent ‘revolution’ and the destruction of Syria. In the western media, in UN reports and among NGOs, the pretense is maintained that, by definition, the opposition in Syria is militarized. This is despite there being hundreds of warlords using terror as a weapon of war making up this western sanctioned Syrian ‘opposition’."

"The pursuit of war demands black and white depictions of complex situations," she explained.

"Today, what is happening in Syria has nothing to do with a fight against an oppressive regime.

"Yesterday, [21 February, 2014] we heard the views of people coming in the south of Syria. They say, ‘we would prefer the jail of the government to the normal way of life imposed on us by the rebels’. Every day you have people who are raped, who are cut into pieces, who are beheaded. And the children, instead of attending school, are recruited to commit terror."

"It is a new form of society: a terrorist society."

She asks, "How can there be peace in Syria if the horrors and those who commit them, whether they are ‘moderate’ fighters or Al-Qaeda terrorists, are not condemned? If those who support them are not condemned? As long as the reality is concealed, the death and destruction will continue."

There is a fear that the ancient citadel in the heart of Aleppo will be destroyed.

"As has happened in Iraq, it seems the green light has been given to destroy the cultural and archeological resources of Syria. The memory of our human history in this ancient country, the relics which have been reminders over millennia of our humanity, may be lost forever."

Jihadists organised from Great Britain and Australia

She sees that, "In the 21st century, people are leaving Great Britain and Australia for Syria because they strive for jihad. But this by itself is not the reason they eventually find themselves in Syria. There is a tight network supporting these fighters. Thus, it could be argued there is hypocrisy in the claim that they will be arrested when they come back. They are not supposed to return. They are in Syria to destroy it and are expected to stay until the destruction is complete.

Yesterday, we were told by local fighters, 'If the president gives us bread and electricity, we will surrender because we can work.' But it was not the president who cut the electricity. It is the militias who cut the electricity to deprive the civilian population from a way of gaining a living for their family. It is one way of dragooning ordinary people into the battle."

War in Syria can only end if foreign interference ends

"This is an international conflict occurring in Syria. It is not a civil war. Saudi Arabia commits millions of dollars to keeping the conflict alive, so terror reigns and the country burns, with the blessing of the United States, Turkey, France and other allies. Israel openly provides medical aid to wounded fighters and sends them back to fight the regular Syrian army. It is a dirty war.

Even though Russia and Iran say they want to help Syria, in the end, each country will work for its own interests.

And their interests will not always suit the interests of Syria. Therefore, there must be an end to any foreign interference inside Syria. Syrian people must be left to deal with their own matters in a non-violent way.

It is the reconciliation movement which can help bring peace to Syria, if the world permits it."

Interview with Sister Agnes Mariam ended here.

Film: The Babbila Reconciliation: a Light at the End of Syria’s Dark Tunnel

Film published on 18 February 2014, with this description: "The Syrian government's efforts in promoting reconciliation and amnesty to Syrian militants who took up arms against it has paid off. Babbila, Yalda, and Beit Sahem are three towns in the Damascus countryside that recently had reconciliation between their militants and the Syrian Army. These deals included agreements on ceasefire, lifting of siege, allowing food and aid to get in, and the giving up of weapons - in most cases - in exchange for the residents raising the Syrian flag.

In Babbila, videos of the armed Islamist militants standing side by side with the Syrian Army might have seemed strange a week ago; however, today, this presents a sliver of hope that there might actually be a way out of this conflict, if all Syrians work together to get their country back." (Sources: NDF Media (Syria), al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon))

NOTES

Notes were taken by three people and this version is a combination of my notes and Susan Dirgham's notes published on the AMRIS site, with the insertion of headings and some paraphrasing by me.

Inside, two interviews with Dr Tim Anderson, Sydney academic, on Syria. The first is by Channel 7 on 24 January 2014 and shows incredible bias. The second is by Journalist Joshua Blakeney, who interviewed Anderson and Hands Off Syria's Jasmine Saadat about their recent visit to Syria where they met with Syrian officials including the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad. The interview was conducted at a time when the pro-war Australian press was attempting to discredit members of Hands Off Syria Australia for meeting with members of the Syrian government. See inside for videos.

This is supplied to readers of candobetter.net in order to balance Channel 7's ridiculously biased interview with Tim Anderson, which you may access here.

The second (larger picture) is the link to the longer and more intelligent interview.

The interview was recorded on January 12, 2014 and can be found archived on The Real Deal radio show's blog: http://radiofetzer.blogspot.ca

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, whose pronouncements on Syria have featured on candobetter.net recently, has authored today's editorial opinion for the New York Times, calling on the US not to invade Syria. Full text reproduced here.

A Plea for Caution From Russia
What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria
By VLADIMIR V. PUTIN
Published: September 11, 2013 in the New York Times

MOSCOW — "RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.

The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

A new opportunity to avoid military action has emerged in the past few days. The United States, Russia and all members of the international community must take advantage of the Syrian government’s willingness to place its chemical arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction. Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action.

I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.

If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

Originally published on the New York Times site, where you can also read over 500 comments (at time of this report - 2135hrs 12/9/2013 Melbourne time)."

Comments can be made on the New York Times site.

This is a telling report on the mainstream media's coverage of events over a few days compared to that of a major alternative. Turn off Murdoch, 7,9,10 and the ABC and tune into RT Media if you are tired of being treated like a fool.

In an interview on NPR a guest from Globalmediawars.com, Nathanael Massey, described RT's coverage for on "On the Media," as entertainment news without substance.

“The gist of that entertainment is making fun of the United States…their content doesn't try to take itself that seriously,” he said.

NPR's interviewer Bob Garfield kept the seemingly disparaging note when he at one point laughed about RT's Osama Bin Laden coverage, saying RT was "maybe thinking the whole thing would just blow over.”

Globalmediawars.com's analysis of RT continued that “RT’s high production values cannot hide its lack of substantive journalism.”

To be fair, we checked this out with some pollsters.

Pew Research tracks the top mainstream media stories week by week and so you can see a breakdown of the top five stories. And looking back there is a really great example where we totally missed one of the five biggest stories of the week covered by the mainstream media.

We missed Charlie Sheen! Just to compare, we looked back at what some of our top stories were that week on RT.

RT covered Libya, labor protests in Wisconsin, and the impact of Middle East and North African unrest on oil prices. You decide which is more newsworthy.

To be fair, that was a big week for Charlie Sheen, we just wanted to look back at one day at another big story we missed when it broke. We missed one of the biggest newsmakers of the week; number three according to Pew Research.

What were some of our top stories that day when the news of Schwarzenneger's love child rocked the news cycle?

Commodity prices, war, the dollar as the reserve currency. No Arnold.

And just to look at what today is one of the big stories on the cable news networks – Casey Anthony.

Dissecting every bit of information in a criminal trial that affects one family, but which is expected to draw as much attention as the OJ Simpson trial and where reportedly 600 members of the press have been credentialed.

Today we are covering the debt ceiling, inequality in the US, the US war in Aghanistan and the factors that have led one million people to apply to McDonald's only for the majority of them to be turned away.

You decide which affects more people, is more newsworthy, contains more substantive journalism, and qualifies as entertainment.

Following an outpouring of opinion on the Internet regarding RT, we wanted to share with you some of the views of your audience via YouTube comments:

"RT tells more truth about America than CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and all the newspapers combined. That in itselt makes RT a saint compared to the trash fed to Americans and the rest of the world. That’s why the attack dogs are out in force to try and discredit RT. I am very pleased with the truth RT uncovers, or at least, asks the questions no one else is asking in the media.”

- Pirell

“I worked for CBS, NBC, ABC, and PBS in a 26 year career in news and network programming from journalist to news producer. I was fired for trying to expose the lies within the military industrial media complex about Iraq and other endless cover-ups. RT is not perfect but they're far more truthful than the traitors, liars and media whores that I experienced first-hand.”

-AffinityNetNews

Source of this article was "RT vs. the mainstream media", Published: 2 June, 2011, 02:14, Edited: 2 June, 2011, 13:31"