Syria

Cracks In The Imperial Partnership?

February 14, 2014 Jason Farbman, www.socialistworker.org Educate! Iran, Israel, Middle East, Syria, Wars and Militarism

"This sentiment was echoed from the floor of the Senate, where Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein denounced the bill. Feinstein took apart AIPAC, argument by argument. She warned the bill would jeopardize the stability the U.S. is trying to generate, arguing, "It says to the U.K., China, Russia, France and Germany that our country cannot be trusted to stand behind our diplomatic commitments." Feinstein decried the bill as a "march to war." While she took pains to reassert her commitment to Israel's self-defense, she also confidently stated, "We cannot let Israel determine when and where the U.S. goes to war." The pushback against AIPAC from the White House, Feinstein and others has opened the door to criticism from other quarters. Feinstein's Senate speech came "amidst a surprising spate of newspaper editorials against the bill, particularly given the dearth of actual news coverage about it," as foreign policy critic Jim Lobe noted."

The Illusion Of AIPAC’s Invincibility

February 10, 2014 Trita Parsi, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! AIPAC, Iran, Israel, Syria

The defeat of AIPAC's ill-advised push for new sanctions on Iran in the midst of successful negotiations is nothing short of historic. The powerful and hawkish pro-Israeli lobby's defeats are rare and seldom public. But in the last year, it has suffered three major public setbacks, of which the sanctions defeat is the most important one. AIPAC's first defeat was over the nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. In spite of a major campaign defaming Hagel, even accusing him of anti-Semitism, his nomination won approval in the Senate. The second was over President Barack Obama's push for military action against Syria. AIPAC announced that it would send hundreds of citizen lobbyists to the Hill to help secure approval for authorization of the use of force.

Is Syrian “Peace” Conference Laying the Foundation for War?

January 31, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.truth-out.org Educate! Syria, Wars and Militarism

The Geneva II conference which claims to be seeking to end the war in Syria seems designed to fail and instead to provide an excuse for military intervention by the United States and its allies. Human rights activist, Ajamu Baraka, describes the negotiations as an ‘Orwellian subterfuge’ designed to provide justification for war and a lot of facts support his view. The negotiations are destined to fail because of the way they have been set-up and the preconditions of the United States and its allies in the Syrian opposition demanding that President Bashar al-Assad agree to leave government before negotiations go forward. The set-up for failure begins with the limited participation.

Top Three Media Lies About The Syrian Peace Talks

January 26, 2014 Shamus Cooke, www.countercurrents.org Educate! Media, Syria

The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the “Geneva II” Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration's longstanding goal of Syrian regime change. Here are the top three Western media lies about the Syrian peace talks. How do these lies become such permanent fixtures in the Western media? An excellent article in the Guardian newspaper recently discussed in depth the principal sources the Western media has used to understand the Syrian conflict. The article exposed the incredible bias of some of the most important Western media sources on Syria, which is why they were handpicked in the first place to be “expert” sources: they had political agendas that were aligned with the U.S. government's foreign policy decisions. The other side of the conflict was completely ignored, except when it was targeted for ridicule.

Syria Peace Conference: Obama Administration Orweillian Subterfuge

January 23, 2014 Ajamu Baraka, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Syria, Wars and Militarism

But who cares what the Syrian people want? It does not seem to matter to the U.S. that supporting Salafi-Wahhabi fundamentalism is the antithesis of the justification it gave for supporting the “revolution” against al-Assad. It does not matter because in the end the interests of the Syrian people are of little concern to these policymakers who prioritize U.S. imperialist interests above every other consideration. In the long annuls of crimes by U.S. and Western imperialism, the slow, protracted destruction of the Syrian state, including the tens of thousands of lives sacrificed, is starting to emerge as one of its most significant crimes. It can be listed with crimes like the Christmas season carpet bombing of North Vietnam in 1972 and the millions murdered in Iraq during the period of sanctions and full-blown military attack.

Syria ‘Torture’ Report Warrants Careful Read

January 23, 2014 Dan Murphy, www.csmonitor.com Educate! Syria, Torture, Wars and Militarism

The report itself is nowhere near as credible as it makes out and should be viewed for what it is: A well-timed propaganda exercise funded by Qatar, a regime opponent who has funded rebels fighting Assad who have committed war crimes of their own. This is a single source report, from an unidentified man, who is related by marriage (according to a footnote on page 15 of the report) to a similarly unidentified member of the "Syrian National Movement" who "left Syria five days after the civil war against the current Syrian regime had begun and established contact with international human rights groups." The Syrian National Movement has been funded by Qatar and is devoted to Assad's downfall and the source has been working with this unidentified Assad opponent since "around September 2011." And yet the report was rushed into publication due to unspecified "time constraints" that made it impossible to "produce a detailed report regarding the exact injuries present in each image for each individual." The document says "Caesar" was interviewed on Jan. 12, 13 and 18 of this year. The report was provided to reporters yesterday, Jan. 20.

Should Syria’s Future Be Decided by Men With Guns?

January 22, 2014 Medea Benjamin, codepink.org Educate! CODE PINK, Syria

The humanitarian crisis is acute. Some 4 million Syrians have been internally displaced. Food and access to it is so restricted in some of the military-contested areas that children are dying from starvation. “There are children who are eating roots and leaves off the trees,” said Kefah Ali Deeb of the National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change. “Believe me; this is not my imagination. There is more suffering than you could imagine.”

Women Make Demands, Demonstrate During Syrian Peace Talks

January 22, 2014 CODEPINK, www.codepink.org Resist! Peace, Syria, Wars and Militarism

A global coalition of women's groups will hold a demonstration outside of the UN Syria peace talks to call for an immediate ceasefire in Syria and for women to have better representation at the peace talks table. Two of the women joining the demonstration are Nobel Peace Laureates, Mairead Maguire and Ann Patterson from Ireland. Activists converged in Geneva earlier this week to meet with Syrian women to hear their analysis of the political situation and their platform for peace “We were so impressed by the Syrian women we met, but disappointed that the UN has not allowed them to have an official role in the talks representing civil society,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin. “Once again it’s the guys with the guns who will determine the future of Syria,” she added.

People Die Of Starvation In Besieged Damascus Refugee Camp

January 16, 2014 Staff, www.AP.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, Hunger, Palestine, Poverty, Syria

Dozens of children, elderly people and others displaced by the Syrian conflict have starved to death in a besieged camp in Damascus, according to reports. The sprawling Yarmouk camp, in the southern suburbs of the city, is home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and displaced Syrians who have been trapped under a year-long blockade. "There are no more people in Yarmouk, only skeletons with yellow skin," said Umm Hassan, a 27-year-old resident and mother of two toddlers. "Children are crying from hunger. The hospital has no medicine. People are just dying." Her three-year-old daughter and two-year-old son were rapidly losing weight from lack of food, she added. Since October, 46 people have died of starvation, illnesses exacerbated by hunger or because they could not obtain medical aid, residents said.

The Nonviolent Roots Of Syrian Rebellion: Students United Against Tyranny

January 5, 2014 Staff, www.syriauntold.com Resist! Student Activism, Syria, Youth

When a group of students staged the first demonstration at the Damascus College of Science in April 2011, they could not imagine that would be the beginning of the future Union of Free Syrian Students (UFSS). The Union, which has played a fundamental role in the Syrian uprising, remains one of the most relevant youth groups developing civil resistance in the country. “At that first demonstration, 50 of us had planned to gather to demand freedom, justice and dignity,” one of the organizers said to Syria Untold. “We were amazed when we saw hundreds of students show up.” After that first protest, which was recorded and widely shared online, professionalization and self-protection became a goal for the students. It became clear that there was an urgent need to protect demonstrators by concealing their identities on camera, which led to an increasing effort in hiding people´s faces on pictures and videos. Today, most of the Union’s work focuses on humanitarian and health aid, as well as on reporting and media activities. They evolve in response to the reality on the ground, which has evolved from a peaceful civil uprising to increasing militarization and Islamization, amid international indifference. In spite of everything, the Union, as many other civil activists, continues to resist all those trends, aiming for a future of freedom, justice and dignity.

NY Times Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis

January 1, 2014 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com Educate! Syria, Wars and Militarism

The Times' embarrassing confession that it got the Sarin gas story wrong was buried on page 8, below the fold, 18 paragraphs into a story under the not-so-eye-catching title, "New Study Refines View Of Sarin Attack in Syria." The Times article at least acknowledges that "vector analysis" - showing the reverse flight paths of two missiles intersecting at a Syrian military base - has collapsed, in part, because the range of the rockets was much too limited. There were other problems with the "vector analysis" that was pushed by the Times and Human Rights Watch, which has long wanted the U.S. military to intervene in the Syrian civil war against the Syrian government. The Times' analysis ultimately fell apart amid a consensus among missile experts that the rockets would have had a maximum range of only around three kilometers when the supposed launch site is about 9.5 kilometers from the impact zones in Moadamiya and Zamalka/Ein Tarma, east of Damascus. Finally, in the article's 18th paragraph, the Times acknowledged its own role in misleading the public, noting that the rockets' estimated maximum range of three kilometers "would be less than the ranges of more than nine kilometers calculated separately by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch in mid-September. ... Those estimates had been based in part on connecting reported compass headings for two rockets cited in the United Nations' initial report on the attacks."

2013 Resistance Report Year In Review

December 30, 2013 Dennis Trainor, Jr., www.acronymtv.com Resistance Report Corporatism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Democracy, Edward Snowden, Energy, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Human Rights, Syria, Video, Wars and Militarism, Worker Rights and Jobs

What an amazing year for the movement of movements that continues to develop here in the United States and around the world, and what an amazing first season of The Resistance Report. In this week’s special expanded episode, we take a look back at some of the most amazing stories of the year. In addition to coverage of Edward Snowden, the Acronym TV 2013 Person of the Year, we also remember 2013 as a time when people took power and reversed what seemed like the inevitable march to war with Syria. In 2013, The Resistance Report served as an antidote to the hear-no-evil see no evil attitude of mainstream media outlets here in the United States about the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan. In the attempt mitigate future catastrophic damage; the global community is faced with challenges unique in the history of humankind. While The Resistance Report launched this year on July 29, 2013, and so our review of Resistance Reports is but a half year old, but there is still enough Manning, Snowden, Greenwald, Keystone X-L protests, Stop the TPP Protests, Dream Defenders, Fast Food Strikers, Hunger Strikers, and neo-liberal shenanigans to jam pack this 60 minute year in review.

Is The Real 9/11 Conspiracy Saudi Arabia

December 30, 2013 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! 9/11, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Wars and Militarism

Many people turn off their ears and close their eyes when someone brings up a conspiracy around the 9/11 attacks. But, in a four part interview by Paul Jay of The Real News an issue is raised by a mainstream member of the U.S. intelligence committee that deserves investigation. Jay interviews former Florida Senator Bob Graham about his work as the co-chair of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 that investigated intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Senator Graham is very much an insider in the U.S. intelligence community. He served for 10 years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including as its Chairman. The investigation into 9/11 intelligence failures and the subsequent cover-up of Saudi involvement by the Bush administration led Senator Graham to question his life-long reverence of presidential authority. A major item that has raised questions in Senator Graham's mind is that the inquiry’s final report included a 28-page chapter describing the Saudi connection to 9/11, but it was completely redacted by U.S. intelligence agencies. Reportedly those pages, which even 12 years later have still not been made public, named Saudi government officials who provided the funding for the 9/11 attacks. This, and other facts, leads Senator Graham to describe Saudi Arabia as “essentially a co-conspirator in 9/11..."

Syrian Refugees In Lebanon Face Bitter Winter

December 15, 2013 Diaa Hadid, www.apnews.com Educate! Human Rights, Syria, Wars and Militarism

Shivering in the snow, Syrian Aisha Mohammad looked at the last-minute charity that saved her children from freezing during the smack of a particularly tough Lebanese winter: a wood-burning stove complete with twigs and garbage to ignite in hopes of warming her drafty tent in an icy eastern plain. Still, her seven children quake from the cold in their donated, bright plastic rain boots, even as they build snowmen resembling their own skinny selves. Since fleeing Syrian government shelling in the northeast province of Raqqa nine months ago, their playground has been here, among the rows of crowded tents they call home.

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