Heavy fighting over the weekend in Eastern Aleppo has left the Syrian military with its largest gains in weeks, with the military claiming to have captured three residential districts in a push into the Nusra Front-held portions of the city.
The advance took Hanano on Saturday, and Jabal Badro by Sunday morning. By the evening, the army also reported they’d taken Holok, and are making a push into three further districts, adding that they killed “a large number of terrorists.”
Following up on reports of civilians being trapped in rebel areas and unable to flee, the Syrian state media has reported at least 1,500 civilians managed to escape during the offensive, getting out of rebel-held areas and into government-held districts.
This advance cuts deeply into Nusra territory within Aleppo, and puts them in an increasingly indefensible position, surrounded by the Syrian military and facing regular airstrikes in a shrinking region. Aleppo has been divided since 2012, and this appears to be the closest anyone has come since to reunifying the once major city.
Though Aleppo has long seen as the key to the Syrian Civil War, the reality is the city has suffered so much damage and become so segmented it is no longer clear that unifying the city will mean anything nearly so decisive, nor control over anything more than a lot of ruins and a lot of desperate, war-weary people.
Well, Aleppo with no fighting is better than Aleppo with fighting. Isn’t an end to the fighting what antiwar.com would seek?
Up to a point. It all depends on the narrative. Ideology is a dangerous sovial phenomena. When elites use ideology, its narrative of the world and its icons – like Aleppo — they cannot essily let go of them. And even when they do — it is always easier to let it go as irrelevant. Trump may have won elections — but if he does not suceed in curbing the power of oligarchy — he will like Obama, be consigned to health care and economy. But it is not likely. He does not owe anything to them and has support in many segments of intelligence and military communities. He will have to give them some positions — but those will either adjust to the changes, or by resisting them — consign themselves to insignificance. Will the oligarchy overreach and expose themselves to political vulnerability — or will they play it cautiously, undermining Trump as opportunity arises? The only indication we will have is the outcome of Sec of State appointment and the already vicious push for getting McFairland to curb Lt. Gen. Flynn. But the lightweight socialite will not be a match for a person who came out of the roll-up-the-sleaves intelligence operations before rising to head the Defence Intelligence Agency. The two headed monster Trump will have to disable is composed of the extreme liberal globalists and extreme neoconservative globalists. The first operating under universal human rights umbrella and the second under free trade cold war style. Both committed to the global dominance, global legislation/judiciary, free movement of people around globe — no matter the costs. On the surface they are opponents — but are nothing but two sides of the same globalist coin. Both of them did not notice the dissatisfaction in the populace with their ideology framed world that is ruining the economy as well as domestic peace and tranquility. But that is true in Brexit as well as it will be a factor in the upcoming French elections. The “Mr.Nobody”, Francois Fillon has beat Sarkosy as well as Juppe in Republican party primary and is likely to have a challenger in Nationalist Marine LePen. Rulling socialists are in a disarray.
The excess of grotesque globalism sold to public as one and only way to share the planet — is facing a backlash in all Western societies.
What does any of this have to do with the situation in Aleppo?
Everything. Powerfull narratives define realities — and at some point outrageous lies become truths, and past that point — it becomes obligatory to perpetuate lies in order to avoid marginalization. Anybody expecting a non-ideological discourse soon finds out that some things are not allowed.
The reality of Aleppo and its mythology pushed by powerful mainstream media conglomerates — are worlds apart. There is nothing that a site like this can do. In Reuters today the advance of Syrian Army into East Aleppo
has been described in the mournful tones of a revolution being extinguished, accompanied by a statement from a “political” arm of Al-Zinki revolutionary group US supports. Never mind that they are nothing more then Al-Nusra group — it is already forgotten that only weeks ago the group posted a video of on execution of a child whose head was cut off. In our media the child was described as ten year old –possibly older. If you have the stomach for it, look up at least the first image, the one of a child being held by the monster before being killed. This is a picture of a child in shorts, his little legs dangling — a child no more then seven year old, or less. These are everyday pictures. Parents hide both boys and girls in ruins to prevent boys as young as seven to be taken for militant training — and girls to be kidnapped into
“marriage”. If found, nobody knows their fate — unless documented by the monsters. Yet — Reuters in an article published here talks of the group
and the residents as if devoted to each other in a losing cause of revolution.
Yet there are stories of the brutality and survival, and flights to freedom under bullets — available to any journalist who would care to know. But this is not alowed. Truth, facts, sitnesses — all not allowed. Unless there is a large scale citizen revolt and refusal to read such media — Washington Post warning against small sites they find suspicious –will be effective. This site is already self-censoring on East Aleppo. Unless there is a broader backlash against such Ministries of Truth in Europe, small rebel sites will be over time crushed.
“and at some point outrageous lies become truths”
Too true, but we should also take heart from the other side of the coin: that at some point “truths” are revealed as outrageous lies. Trumps election has opened the eyes of many to the perfidious nature of elite-owned corporate media, and I suspect that the liberation of Aleppo from the JaN terror gang and their allies will prove to be yet another nail in the coffin of MSM “credibility”.
I think you would be interested in the old Reader’s Digest feature, “Towards More Picturesque Speech.”
There seems to exist a never ending lament over the prospect of Aleppo’s reunification. I cannot see the advantage of having Al-Qaeda holled up in its ruins along with the thousands of civilians being held hostage, hiding their kids in ruins to prevent the “rebels” taking them. I see no advantage to the desparate outbursts of fights against the barbarians by barehanded population. I do not see it as a matter of indifference whether those barbarians are defeated and population liberated. Our mainstrean media — having invested a fortune and their reputation in maitaining a myth of “good” rebels manning the barricades against the dictator — has once again lost. They lost the fake narrative, and Obama can stay true to the bitter end to the same lie. But as US public is being kept in the dark- the world is not. The liberated civilians reunited with their families are free to tell of the horrors of terror filled years. To them — freedom has made the world of difference. There are still plenty of terrorists in Syria — but with flushing of Aleppo of their propaganda weapon — they are facing surrendering or demise. This method of regime change will go into the history and its authors a deserved not so good infamy.