Saturday, April 19, 2014

The Syria Carnage Continues while the World's Attention Is in Europe

The world has been tightly focused on the Ukraine crisis and the missing Malaysian Flight MH370, but the carnage in Syria goes on and on. Here's the latest news. ~~~~~ The French are celebrating the release of four of their journalists held 10 months in Syrian captivity. In 2013, Syria was the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The conflict claimed the lives of at least 29 journalists in 2013, its annual report stated, taking the total number killed covering the war to at least 63, including some who died over the border in Lebanon or Turkey. CPJ research says : "The huge number of deaths in Syria does not tell the complete story of the danger there, given an unprecedented number of kidnappings....About 60 journalists were abducted at least briefly during the year and about 30 are currently missing." Jihad groups, particularly an al-Qaida-breakaway group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, are believed responsible for most kidnappings that have taken place since 2013. Government-backed militias, criminal gangs and more moderate rebel factions also have been involved, seeking everything from ransom to prisoner exchanges. The release of the four French men comes after three Spanish reporters held by the group were freed in March. ~~~~~ Meanwhile, violence continued Saturday in Syria, as rebel car bombings killed at least 10 people, officials and activists said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one car bomb killed at least four people in the city of Homs, in an area dominated by Alawites - the same sect as President Bashar al-Assad. State-run television also reported the bombing but did not immediately have a death toll. Earlier in the day, another car bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint near the government-controlled town of Salamiya killing at least six soldiers, activists said. And on Friday, a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in a pro-government district of Homs, killing 14 people in the latest violence in the war-torn city, state Syrian television reported. The bombing occurred as worshippers left the Bilal al-Habshi mosque on the edge of Akrama after attending Friday prayers and also wounded at least 50 people. The area, populated mainly by Alawites, members of al-Assad's minority sect, repeatedly has been targeted by car bombs. Opposition activists also reported the blast. The Syrian Observatory for Human rights said the explosion killed at least nine people, adding that the number likely would rise. The attack coincides with a crushing offensive by al-Assad forces in central Syria, leaving Homs as the last rebel stronghold in the central region not to have been retaken by al-Assad troops aided by Lebanese Hezbollah forces. ~~~~~ Earlier this week, the UN Envoy to Syria pleaded for both the rebel and al-Assad sides in Homs to re-enter negotiations, which were broken off in February. The UN envoy called the center of Homs "a theatre" of war and death. ~~~~~ And as reported here earlier in detail in the April 3rd blog, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has passed the 1 million mark, rising from 18,000 just two years ago, making Lebanon the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The total number of registered Syrian refugees in all countries is 2.58 million. Other nations with large populations of Syrian refugees include Jordan and Turkey. The United Nations has said that more than 100,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in Syria since the popular uprising spiraled into a civil war in 2011. UN staff in Lebanon register 2,500 new Syrian refugees every day, the UNHCR said. ~~~~~ Whether the world watches or has its attention focused elsewhere, the horrific civil war in Syria rolls on. There are no indications that Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, or Iran and Hezbollah, are willing to let the Syrian people make their own decision about their future. And President Obama's abandonment of Middle East leadership in general, and Syrian leadership in particular, has made it impossible for local countries and leaders to make a decisive difference. This can clearly be seen as the frustration of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the leading Middle East sunni power lined up against al-Assad's shiites and their Russian, al-Qaida and Iranian keepers, recently surfaced when Saudi Arabia replaced its intelligence chief, who is widely seen as the architect of the Kingdom’s interventionist policy in the Syrian civil war. The government-owned Saudi Press Agency announced on Tuesday that prince Bandar bin Sultan had been “relieved of his post at his own request.” Here is how the Saudi Press Agency described the situation : " Bandar was born in 1946 to a concubine of crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, 12th son of Saudi monarch King Abdulaziz. In 1983, Bandar was appointed ambassador to the United States, a post he held until 2005. He developed numerous connections in Washington and rose to become a leading operator in Middle East affairs. In 2012, he was appointed director of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, the country’s primary intelligence organization. Since that time, he has been the primary planner of the Saudi hawkish policy on the Syrian civil war, which has been to openly support the rebel groups fighting to oust the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia has supplied weapons, cash and intelligence to the Syrian rebels with Bandar as the country’s intelligence chief. But his once close relations with Washington went sour last year, when he described US President Obama’s refusal to launch military strikes on Syria as a 'major shift' in American Middle East policy. He also angered the US by criticizing its rapprochement with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is Riyadh’s major regional adversary. Perhaps more important, Bandar probably underestimated the strength of the al-Assad administration and advised King Abdullah in 2012 that the Syrian government’s days were numbered. The stalemate in the Syrian civil war seems to have frustrated the Saudi government, which began gradually distancing itself from Bandar since January. The prince has spent most of 2014 in the United States and Morocco, ostensibly for 'medical treatment.'" According to Saudi government media, Bandar has been replaced "on an interim basis" by his deputy, Yousef al-Idrissi. Meanwhile, insiders say that the Syria file has been transferred to prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the kingdom’s minister of interior. But, Bandar remains secretary general of the National Security Council, an influential advisory board that directs Saudi Arabia’s national security and intelligence. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it remains to be seen whether the Saudi action can save a rapidly failing Syria rebel cause, which was probably doomed when it was infiltrated in late 2012 by al-Qaida islamic jihadists, making it almost impossible for the West to support the rebels militarily. It remains, also, to be answered whether Putin's Russia and Iran deliberately planted al-Qaida terrorists in the rebel ranks for just that reason. And it also remains for history to judge the Obama decisions that have left innocent Syrian blood on his administration's hands -- for if Obama had acted quickly, the Syrian civil war would never have escalated to its present viciously murderous level.

11 comments:

  1. It's only my personal belief that the attention shift to both the missing airplane (which is it missing or part of shifting attention away fro Syria) and the uproar in the Crimea & Ukraine are both welcomed diversions for Obama & his Administration.

    It simply renders them an escape from the front page coverage and daily embarrassing reminder of his "Line in the Sand" stance (that fell through) failure due to Obama's lack of convictions and concern for a people that offers him NOTHING.

    Although we still need answers from the Malaysian government about the missing flight and from Russia over the Ukraine. Since I started to type this comment some 5 people have died in Syria on one side or the other.

    Syria need someones action and soon or there won't be a Syria left. Human carnage and genocide use to be a concern for the nations that are purveyors of freedom, justice, human rights, civil rights, religious freedom without the risk of violent persecution and death at the worst. And at the best being driven from their homes into refugee camps in a foreign country.

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  2. Our current foreign policy is nothing less than madness. No, maybe we went beyond madness to insanity a few years ago.

    To have something that is perpetrated as a “policy” is to have a plan and work the plan. Obama’s idea is to run to the Rose Garden when the latest “plan” has gone astray and announce a new “plan” for something or someplace. Obama’s newest foreign policy is nothing more than a cover-up for his latest failure.

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  3. What you/we/me are witnessing here is the extension of the activities that took place in Libya, specifically Benghazi, where the United States, the British, French and Saudi Arabia were involved in the largest arms running operation in the world, all in direct violation of international law. Benghazi was never a scandal, but a criminal enterprise conducted by the power elite of Western governments having the objective to topple Assad and destabilize Syria. This is part of a much larger agenda that includes the well planned and finely orchestrated Arab Spring, which was planned years in advance.

    Our government is out of control by assisting terrorist groups to achieve their own despicable and diabolical ends to reshape the world according to the objectives of the globalists. The “minds” that were able to juggle programs using the terrorists and insurgent groups, all the while staying on topic to achieve the end game are nearly all gone.

    Meanwhile, the corporate media facilitates this agenda of death by rewriting current events to protect their own. Make no mistake, the operation that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi under Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John O. Brennan as well as their foreign counterparts is continuing by other means. Yet no one is calling for accountability… there is no ACCOUNTABILITY any more it seems in anything – everyone is without cause.

    No one is asking the right questions that require answers that would potentially expose their political icon to the wrath of truth. Instead, we’ve got a bunch of shameless politicians, inept policy experts, an impotent press and naive columnist’s hell bent on convincing the American public that we’re fighting the good fight.

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  4. To your popshot...and a great sound it was and up to Barack-baby the sound was still revered everywhere!!!

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  5. What is happening in Syria right now is of epic proportions of Human Kindness Disengage better known as HKD in the world of acronyms that governments love.

    I generally don’t care one bit about the political civil war in Syria – except to the degree that it is killing children and their last chance at a future. Over 10,000 children below the age or 5 have been killed since this war started. Nearly every school aged child in Syria in 2013 was denied ANY form of education. Their homes have become tents. Their food is in the slackest description is barely food at all.

    Their lives are all about fear and hunger. They must worry if in the morning anyone they call family will still be there.

    And it seems that for the most part No country, NO organization, NO Church, NO one is doing anything. There is no Human Kindness being extended towards these children who didn’t ask for, or even care about this Civil War of Assad.

    Cut off the head and the snake will die.

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    Replies
    1. Concerened CitizenApril 19, 2014 at 7:10 PM

      What we also witnessing is the fact that people enjoy being mean or evil to people who they perceive to be lesser important or below them on the ladder of importance.

      Look at the last 100 years of oppressors, dictators, and tyrants that the world has had to put up with. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Che, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, al-Assad, OBL, and the list goes on. But the common thread is that they all thought of themselves as better than the people they were enslaving and had an outrageous capacity to inflict agony and death of those identical citizens they were protecting.

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  6. De Oppressor LiberApril 19, 2014 at 6:06 PM

    Bandar will not be made the escape goat for anyone's policy in Syria. For years he has been an able co-between many governments and his own.

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  7. There are two truisms in (American) politics: 1. Follow the money trail, and 2. Connect the dots. Well with all the happenings in foreign affairs & diplomacy since the onset of the Syrian Civil War to the Boston Marathon bombing last year, shadowed the next evening by the outright attack on the San Jose (California) power station by 6 insurgents/terrorists/criminals for hire types right up through the missing Malaysia passenger plane, and the Crimea-Ukraine fracas (and the prolongation of Syria); NO one has really did either of the 2 “truisms.

    There is an obvious linking in the middle of of the 2 brothers charged (wrongfully) in the Boston Marathon case, Syria, Crimea, Ukraine … RUSSIA. Their finger prints are all over all 4 mentioned incidents. Incidents that the Obama administration wants to keep unconnected and markedly diverse.

    The level of the terrorists’ organizations activity around the world can only be operational with great sums of monies readily accessible for their consumption instantaneously. Also if one would take and map out the “hot spots” and then connect them maybe an enlightening shape would appear.

    There is an acronym in marketing/sales … K.I.S.S. meaning “Keep It Simple Stupid”. Not that anyone reading Casey Pops is stupid – not by a long shot. But some governments and leaders are it seems.

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  8. At every corner, at every turn in the road Obama just keeps "betraying the great trust that we put into every elected president. In Obama's case he just keeps betraying our trust and we keep allowing it.

    Obama must be held responsible for his assault on the Constitution by the right of Impeachment. To do so is not Impeaching the 'office" but just the current inhabitant of the office.

    Obama swore on a Bible to uphold the Constitution, not selected parts that fit his agenda. Now he needs to swear on a Bible to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"

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  9. Given the accounts of atrocities being carried out in Syria today, the reports of torture and starvation and the flood of refugees into neighboring countries, it is reminisces of the battle of Stalingrad at the end of WW II.

    Had it not been for the abandonment of the German 6th Army by Hitler one can only imagine how much worse it could have been? Some of the emaciated German soldiers that were detained in appalling conditions in Soviet labor camps were not repatriated until 1956. Is this the backdrop that will eventually be the outcome for Syria?

    The Russian prison of WW II and the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey for Syrian citizens have one common denominator – in-human conditions for deserted people.

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  10. In the title of a he made popular song, Johnny Cash got it right, “Don’t take your guns to town,” unless you’re prepared to use them. Undeniably, President Obama and John Kerry have egg all over their faces today, as they did in the Syrian “red line” episode. Yet they continue to lodge themselves (and therefore us) where we do not belong, issue warnings and threats they have no power to enforce, and bluster and bluff about what they are going to do. When what they are going to do (again) is NOTHING.

    Why more U.S. warships in the Black and Baltic seas and more F-16s and U.S. troops in Eastern Europe, what is their purpose, when we are not going to go to war with Russia? Obama and John Kerry both know that and so does Russia.

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