Top Syrian General Defects With 50 Troops
Violence against protesters has not halted since the arrival of Arab League monitors
A senior general in the Syrian regime has announced he is defecting from the army with up to 50 of his soldiers, as Arab League monitors continue to wrestle with President Bashar al Assad’s ongoing violence against protesters.
Colonel Afeef Mahmoud Suleiman said the Assad regime’s brutal repression of protesters was unacceptable.
“We are from the army and we have defected because the government is killing civilian protesters,” he said. “The Syrian army attacked Hama with heavy weapons, air raids and heavy fire from tanks.”
The prime minister of Qatar said on Friday that Syria was not complying with the deal agreed upon by the Arab League which intended to end the 10-month long bloody crackdown. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said the army had not withdrawn from Syrian cities, as required inthe deal, had not withdrawn, adding that there had been no end to killing since the arrival of monitors.
The Arab League will discuss the report written up by the monitors on Sunday.
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GeorgeG
January 8th, 2012 at 6:06 am
Colonel???? Senior General????? what are we doing here??? b at Moon of Alabama has an intelligent take on this…..
Watson
January 8th, 2012 at 6:47 am
I'm kind of confused here. The linked article clearly says (except for the headline) that the officer defecting is an air force colonel. Said colonel is then quoted as saying he is in the army. And evidence of the 50 men who are defecting with him is where?
David Daniels
January 8th, 2012 at 9:38 am
Grotesque propaganda. So sloppy it would be hilarious if the consequences were not so tragic.
Only on Al-Jazeera (cheerleaders of the Libya disaster), MSNBC, and antiwar.com would could a colonel become a general and a rag tag group of 16 or so poorly dressed guys become an "army of 50."
As one poster above mentioned, this analysis takes apart the propaganda (something antiwar.com used to be so good at doing): http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/01/msnbc-create…
Stanley Laham
January 8th, 2012 at 10:51 am
Mr. Glaser,
It is your own credibility that is dubious at this point, not the Syrian government's. Damascus will not be easy prey to a "colored" paid for revoluton nor a NATO military intervention. It seems now that one can only get news fro rt.com.
thedissenter
January 8th, 2012 at 3:02 pm
He, indubitably, got paid by the CIA to do that. We lefties all know what a swell guy Assad is. Besides, all Syrians are stupid and sold out.
Yeah, yeah. That's the ticket.
Nathan
January 8th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
These days any so-called news about Syria in the U.S, meadi, including Anti-war, is just a bunch of bals-face lies.
Nathan
January 8th, 2012 at 4:15 pm
"…as Arab League monitors continue to wrestle with President Bashar al Assad’s ongoing violence against protesters."
No one is interested in your supid opinion, just stick to the real news!
Rob
January 9th, 2012 at 4:34 am
Yeah, no kidding.
It is true that the headline is false, as it was not a general apparently, but a colonel, therefore misleading. And we don't know how many "defectors" there really are. He could have corrected that.
However, I'm still trying to figure out the equation which posits that :
No war propaganda or Imperial/NATO/GCC military intervention = There is no opposition to (wonderful guy) Assad.
It's the same thing with NATO/Libya. I understand the desire to resist the propaganda which always precedes any armed invasion or military action, and not wanting the public to be fooled into supporting yet another atrocity, the incubator babies, Chalabi, etc. etc.
Can we just say that we oppose military intervention and the false pretexts and lies in the press which invariably accompany it? This does NOT mean that there is NO opposition to Assad's rule, or that every single rally in the countryside is cooked up by the CIA. Besides being false, this thinking veers toward racism, as if people there are totally incapable of taking any matters into their own hands or thinking for themselves. Is there really any reason we should be supporting the Syrian government (or any government for that matter)? Not any more than NATO/US "humanitarian" intervention.
Posting this over at MoA too because comments there are pretty ridiculous, even though the blog is excellent.