After five years of civil war, Syria is experiencing a temporary return to normalcy, with a ceasefire now in its fifth day and still holding steady. There is a lot of negativity about the chances of making a peace deal, but everyone is enjoying the dramatic reduction in violence the ceasefire has provided.
Everyone except the rebels, that is. Having resisted international efforts to broker a settlement of the war, many rebel factions were dragged kicking and screaming by the international community into this truce, insisting all the while it wouldn’t work.
The rebels who were blasting the US for “betraying” them by supporting a doomed ceasefire last week are now blasting the US for “betraying” them by supporting a ceasefire which is working, and is heading toward some settlement short of installing them as the new government.
Rebels now say they’re convinced the US, Russia, and the Assad government are all plotting against them, and after previously making their participation in peace talks conditional on a ceasefire, they are hunting for a new excuse to keep the war going.
None of the linked articles stated that rebels were against the ceasefire. In the linked HuffPost article there was a former engineering student who is now an activist and other civilians who were against the ceasefire. The article didn’t mention the actual rebels point of view.
Yes Jason Ditz had made mistakes in the past.
Given how messy the situation is — it is easy to make mistakes. Jason Ditz, however, makes honest mistakes, and never sells anybody’s narrative. My suggestion is only to try to push the narrative-peddlers to identify the “rebels” by group name. The name “rebels” still conjures up the wholesome image of righteousness. This is not honest to continue using that adjective or even give them a voice — unless they will identify the group they belong to. The atrocities by all groups are well documented, and I can understand the propaganda value of describing individuals in their wholesome self-crated image. But it is getting stale at this point, and they have either belonged to a group all these years, or have not. Most of these quoted do not strike me as war weary civilians. They sound more like NGO activists that are funded and trained to stick with a narrative that can be quoted and then repeated over and over again. So we do not forget “barrel bombs”, but forget crucifying Christians, chopping heads of thousands unfortunate civilians, and even killing a girl with a chain saw in front of a nun. There are witnesses — and this is why the infidel Assad must go, he has a documentation and witnesses from day one of this externally fueled coup attempt that descended into war of attrition.
We cannot hope to extricate ourselves from the various narratives — but we can DEPRIVE them of oxygen. So, one such truth seeking technique is to never use the word “rebel” unless it is associate with the name of the group — then we are getting somewhere. If the mainstream media is just quoting various activists, it may not be unreasonable to ask them who is paying their salaries, and shaping their narratives. And it is not too hard to spot the difference between an ordinary citizen opinion vs. self-styled “rebel” that will not identify the group it is working with, or self-styles “activist” that will not identify the NGO that is paying his/her salary. Once we know who they are, we can conclude by ourselves if they are “rebels” or something else.
Only one of them is a “pro-democracy” activist. The other three are presumably residents. Also the article stated that the civilians are stocking up in preparation of a siege by the Assad government. In a survey from Syrian refugees in Germany:
Your reading of the article is quite selective. The dentistry student you mention was quoted: “Now, we can’t fight the regime, but Assad and Russia and United States will bomb us.”
The ex-student – who dropped out of school in 2011 – is clearly part of the fighting, and the fact that he says “Assad and Russia and United States will bomb us” indicates he’s part of IS or an al-Qaeda linked group, which were excluded from the ceasefire.
In the article it says that the dentistry student is currently an “activist”. Also it said he documented “pro democratic protests” in 2011 suggesting that he was for democracy, if he was for democracy then why would he be part of IS or al-Qaeda?
If you search Google for Assad barrel bombings, those who complain about them are civilian activists. That’s because 99% of the casualties from barrel bombs were civilians. You will then find a list of articles advocating a “no fly zone”. A “no fly zone” is advocated by some of those “activists” to protect civilians. It’s “activists” like him who constantly call for a “no fly zone”.
The rebels,…just the latest in a long list of folks who trusted the US only to get shafted.
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Again and again — who are the “rebels”? If you exclude head-choppers, crucifiers, and other assorted organ-eaters — under whatever name — please list at least one, or one person belonging to at least ONE of these legitimate “rebels”, so we can verify? These groups and these guys were not shy about atrocities against civilians, recorded them for bragging rights and for sales on Saudi streets. So, pretty “pleeez” give us a name from now on. Those that are mad are various jihadists working under the A-Nusra or ISIS umbrella, and now are being bombed. All the independents — that is those that did not want to pledge allegiance to these two, long time ago joined the Syrian army under amnesty deal and are now fighting as a militia along with Syrian army. So are Christian militias, and various Shia self-defense groups. This is one of the reason the cease fire is holding — those that are with Al-Nusra and ISIS are being bombed and advanced against, and there is no cease fire. Those that did not want to go under them have for the longest time collaborated with Syrian Army, and US knows it. When we talk of the “rebel” and Kurds initiative against ISIS keep in mind that they are backed by both US and Russian air power. And these “rebels” have for the longest time aligned with Syrian Army moves.
Cease fire is holding because the key participants are Syrian Army and those that collaborated with it now for quite a while. It is mythology that US has control over Syrian Kurds — it has not. This is why Turkish Army is attacking them so that they cry “Uncle”, that is “Uncle Sam” to be called “to the rescue”. There is a lots of dirty games, crossing and double-crossing going on at this time, but the space for the maneuver for all those US sponsored “rebels” — is getting narrower and narrower. They are now forced to show their allegiance — and they feel betrayed. They cannot any longer be the “moderate rebels” and enjoy the Al-Nusra or ISIS umbrella military support, while saintly getting arms and intelligence from US.
There is just one problem. They can run to ISIS held territory, as there they are safe. All allies that we claim as our coalition have either withdrawn or are not at all attacking ISIS. In fact, look at the difference in the way US and Russia have divided the sky over Syria. Russia against Al-Nusra, Army of Conquest and over 1,000 of their affiliate groups, has made major progress. Along with Syrian Army and their affiliated militias they liberated dozens of towns and villages where the people returned. Contrast that with US work over ISIS held territory. NOT ONE. Nobody was freed up from ISIS. In order to tie down Syrian Army, Turkey is — clearly as NATO ally — with our knowledge moving military trucks into bordering Kurdish territory, to try to prevent quick fall of Al-Nusra in that region, and make it more difficult for Syrian Army to liberate what was left of Al-Nusra forces in Allepo. Such old silly games. But what if nobody takes the bait, and leave status quo on the border, depriving Turkey of excuses, and Russian air force turns on ISIS held territory? After all, US has been “complaining” that Russia is not hitting ISIS — it is only hitting “nice” Al-Nusra? What if they push ISIS the way they pushed Al-Nusra into corner to seek rescue under Turkish umbrella? What if Syrian Army under such air cover starts liberating those ISIS held towns and villages? Is this the real reason for US “mentioning” partitioning Syria? To secure ISIS held territory, while “fighting” ISIS. And have excuse to bring in ground troops into that territory and to keep it there ad infinitem? We still police every bar fight in Bosnia, keep in power crime gangs in Kosovo, and are defending caliphate peddling groups in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and beyond? We are singing praises to those groups and encouraging them via our propaganda media, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. According to those taxpayer funded outfits that also fund “non-governmental” groups there with our money — those nice groups “just want their caliphate” and it is those bad Uzbek, Turkmen or Tajiki inferior governments that are intolerant! So, while we promote caliphate and encourage those groups assuring them of US support, we look down our noses on those governments that are so far keeping those groups under control, keep the population employed, keep schools open and garbage collected. This is what our establishment under both parties is doing, and they call Trump racist! What a mess.
This is false. The U.S. has taken key cities like Ramadi and the whole Northern part of Iraq with airstrikes and funding the Peshmerga/YPG. The Iraqi Army is doing a siege in the city of Fallujah as it is being surrounded. Of course there were massive civilian casualties.
See this map. The yellow parts are taken from U.S.-backed Kurds with U.S. airstrikes. If you compare this with older maps, you will notice that the yellow part is expanding downward. This means that the U.S.-backed Kurds are expanding.
The “liberated” villages are basically destroyed with massive civilian casualties.
Also the U.S. did 10,000 airstrikes between August 2014 and December 2015 with 30,000 individual bombs. It also claimed that it killed 10,000 “militants”, but hundreds of them were proven to be civilians.
Your data makes no sense. I have an issue with assunptions.
Ramadi is an entirely different story from what is happening in Syria. And where did you get the information that the liberated villages are completely devastated when it was reported in world media on the return of many villagers and the stories of those that managed to survive under Al-nusra. It is tiresome to read information coming from ghe utterly uninformrd journalists that never get out of the safety of their cubicles. Hope more international media sill get in to get the information first hand.
See here for the footage:
https://redpill.me/articles/footage-of-victory-and-liberation-of-rebel-held-cities/
Also right before the ceasefire Assad/Russia has destroyed entire villages held by rebel forces.
I’m sure Obama, Kerry, Carter, Clinton, Powers and the other neocons, as well as Netanyahu and his minions, are also fuming.