Shades of Oliver North. Now its “legal” to raise funds for the Free Syrian Army in the United States. How that supposedly non-military support aid gets translated into arms is a question that goes to the profound root of financial alchemism, but somehow you know the “bad guys” are going to get what they have coming. But the romanticized rebels could be on the terror watch list tomorrow. But who in Syria is really boyfriend material anyway?
Its all about foreign reserves in U.S. dollars, bringing Iran down to ground zero level and paving the way for Fortune 500 companies to get that branch plant mentality worked into hitherto rather banal consumers who have never heard of Red Bull, The Black Keys and whatever else white yuppie culture can douche on them. The old tricks of trading worthless trinkets with Indians in exchange for hard assets. Not that Iran doesn’t deserve it. The Ugly American. All he wants, or she, is to impose a very normative democracy based on property law. And they’re willing to go down knees and hands to suck the poison out of what’s in place.
—Al-Assad emphasized that the current happenings in Syria are not the results of a revolution but of terrorism. “This is not an Arab Spring revolution, but purely terrorism. The Arab Spring is the Trojan horse to fulfill the aggressive plans against Syria. From the first week of the crisis, many soldiers lost their lives”, he said, adding that this shows it has been an armed “revolution” from the start….Read More:http://worldmathaba.net/items/1529-president-al-assad-we-are-fighting-a-regional-and-international-battle-and-we-will-win-it
Bashar himself, is a case study in political narcissism. On home turf he is the miserable loser that everyone knows him to be and that his father’s dough got him a hot piece of behind. In the West, he makes this totally obvious effort to cultivate charm and something crudely resembling social adaptability despite an obvious lack of qualifications, he still somehow believes he can appear likeable, maybe a quick appearance on Jay Leno where he can crack an Obama style joke on retards on the Golan. On the Arab media he doesn’t appear to really care at all. Loss of life of little concern.
…Jill Dougherty in an article on CNN said the United States is training rebels in how to run local government after and if Assad succumbs. It smells very fishy. So called programs on “civil administration, human rights training, and other services.The council members are learning “the kinds of things that they might need from the international community as they begin to rebuild their towns,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in her Wednesday briefing.”
— With Syrian diplomacy all but dead, the Obama administration is focusing on political transition and helping the rebels defeat the Syrian regime. Washington has increased its humanitarian aid to US$74 million and its “nonlethal” communications assistance to US$25 million.
The administration also has eased restrictions for rebel fundraising in the United States. Most of the weapons used by the rebels are believed to be purchased inside and outside Syria with money from supporters abroad, mostly in the Gulf states.
The U.S. has been working politically with Syrian exiles who drew up a transition plan for governing the country if the Assad regime collapses. The plan was unveiled this week in Berlin. —Read More:http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the-china-post/special-to-the-china-post/2012/09/02/352967/p2/Syria-diplomacy.htm image:The Telegraph
…”They’re asking for help in how to budget. They’re asking for help in how to keep utilities running. How to ensure that the institutions of the state that, you know, provide services to the population, come back up and running. So we are open to supporting all of those kinds of needs,” she explained.Nuland called it a “first round” of training, tailored to help form a nascent democratic society, even before President Bashar al-Assad is gone.”It also gives us an opportunity,” she said, “to talk to them about inclusion and protection of minorities and all those things.” …(CNN)
(see link at end)…The Syrian regime has deployed a deadly new home-made weapon in addition to its large arsenal of Russian-supplied armaments – bombs packed inside large oil drums and dropped from helicopters. …The “barrel bombs” have emerged as an improvised weapon with the aim of causing maximum death and destruction, The Daily Telegraph can disclose, as the regime seeks to break rebel resistance in Syria’s second city, Aleppo….
—Writer Nahla Al-Muaz provided no evidence for this but said it was part of a US attempt ”to push the Syrian government to surrender.”
”Obama never mentions the reason for his interest in overthrowing the government of Syria. But hidden behind the humanist claims, the motivations are clear to any political analyst,” she wrote. ”They are firstly to get rid of the Russian naval base in Syria and deprive Russia of its only Mediterranean base. Secondly, the aim is to isolate Syria to prevent the provision of arms to Hezbollah so as to help Israel in its efforts to occupy South Lebanon and control its water resources.”
In their accounts of the fighting, Syrian newspapers invariably stress the presence of ”terrorists of Arab, foreign and African nationality.”—Read More:http://www.salon.com/topic/syria/ image:http://piazzadcara.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/president-bashar-al-assads-interview-with-addounia-tv/
…Filled with TNT, oil and ch
of steel, the exploding barrels kill and maim across a wider area than high explosives.“The sound was like nothing else I’ve ever heard. It was an almighty whoosh,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, a fighter recovering from an explosion that he said was of terrifying intensity caused by such a bomb.
“I was lucky I was standing behind a corner but I was still knocked off my feet. When I came round my ears were bleeding.”
Resembling a bandaged survivor of the Great War trenches, he staggered on his feet as he displayed his injuries. He also had perforated eardrums. Read More:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9512719/Syrian-regime-deploys-deadly-new-weapons-on-rebels.html
—“For a long time we’ve been telling them there is no political solution,” he said of American and other officials who held out hope for a negotiated end to Mr. Assad’s rule.
Administration officials say that outsourcing the supply of money and arms to the rebels maintains a crucial distinction that keeps American military fingerprints off a conflict that has already turned into a bloody civil war. “It’s not for us to determine what the donations are used for,” said one official, who requested anonymity to discuss administration thinking, describing a plausible deniability that might not be plausible to all. “It could be for medical supplies.” —Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/world/middleeast/syrian-group-in-united-states-seeks-to-arm-rebels-against-assad.html?ref=world
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…But a far more heroic image of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces is being fostered by the regime’s own media, part of a determined effort to keep up morale as fighting continues to rage in Aleppo and other cities.
Nightly on state television, pictures are shown of children kissing soldiers or being hoisted aloft by them, with a patriotic song, “This is the Nation’s Army,” playing in the background….
On Aug. 1, Armed Forces Day, a picture of a small boy in a scouts uniform, saluting and handing a red rose to a wounded soldier on his hospital bed, led state media coverage. It was complemented by reports from across Syria of citizens paying blustery tributes to the army for, in their words, shielding the nation from the sweeping international conspiracy against it.
A citizen identified as Mohammed al-Samia was quoted in al-Baath, the daily newspaper of Assad’s political party, applauding the army for ”arriving in neighborhoods to save [citizens] from the crimes of traitors. The army is showing that Syria is a rock that won’t be broken by conspiracies.”
Such invocation of conspiracies underway against Syria are all pervasive on television and in the newspapers, including state-run Tishreen, and al-Watan, which claims to be independent but is published by Assad’s tycoon cousin, Rami Makhlouf.
The Syrian government is telling its people that the bloodshed is not the result of an uprising, or even civil war, but rather entirely the outcome of conspiratorial foreign (be it US, Turkish, European, Saudi, Qatari, Israeli, Al Qaeda or others) interventions aimed at subverting Syria. The reason? Because Syria is a steadfast Arab nationalist state….
—The group became more organized last spring when it formally incorporated, started its Web site and, in May, hired a former NATO political officer, Brian Sayers, as its director of government relations in Washington after finding him through an online employment agency.
That same month, it applied for a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to raise money for the rebels. It was granted on July 23 after the Obama administration intensified its efforts to provide humanitarian and other nonlethal assistance inside Syria. American law restricts arms sales generally, and sanctions prohibit them to Syria specifically. But while the group cannot ship weapons, it can send money that the rebels can use to buy them. —Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/30/world/middleeast/syrian-group-in-united-states-seeks-to-arm-rebels-against-assad.html?ref=world image:http://www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/2005_syriana_001.html
…As the conflict drags on, some developments have emerged to support such conspiracies. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are both funding and arming Syria’s rebels. And groups aligned with Al Qaeda have trickled in over the borders of Iraq and Lebanon to join the fight. But foreign governments and other groups are also backing the Syrian regime, including Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.
Analysts say that for the regime, credibility is not the key to winning the media war, but rather the ability to pass a strong, consistent message.
Nadim Shehadi, a specialist on Syria and Lebanon at Chatham House, the think-tank of the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, said Syrian television, despite a lack of credibility in its reports, is playing a highly effective role in the war.
”My impression is they are doing quite a good job and are much more effective than the opposition media. Their aim is not to be credible but to pass messages, such as that the regime is strong. People don’t have to believe what is being broadcast, but the overall message is ‘we’re here and here to stay,’ which is quite strong.”
Both the regime and its opponents view the media war as crucial to the outcome of the fighting, with the Arab League in June officially asking satellite operators Arabsat and Nilesat to stop broadcasting Syrian television stations. On Aug. 6, a bomb exploded at the offices of the Syrian broadcasting authority in Damascus, wounding several people.
The regime’s claim of a foreign conspiracy reached a fever pitch in an analysis earlier this month in al-Watan by Maysoun Youssef. Citing what she said were Turkish media reports, Youssef wrote that the American military in Turkey is equipping Al Qaeda fighters against Syria.
”The real cooperation between this terrorist organization and American intelligence affirms the American dissemblance in fighting Al Qaeda and its terrorism,” she wrote.Read More:http://www.salon.com/topic/syria/
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