Another day of violence in Syria has come and gone, with opposition figures hyping gaudy but unconfirmed death tolls and Western hawks pressing for intervention against the Assad regime.
Violence is undoubtedly on the rise in Syria, but the actual story on the ground is almost impossible to divine, with the opposition telling tales of wholesale slaughter of civilians and Syrian state media claiming regular terrorist attacks, and the battles between the two getting almost no press in favor of stories that will play better in speeches at the UN.
In many ways, the truth on the ground is not only shrouded in mystery but is very much beside the point, and an incipient civil war between the Turkey-backed FSA and the Assad regime is really neither here nor there for policymakers. The decision to intervene has already been made, and whatever stories rhetorically necessary to transform the local dictator into some reasonable facsimile of Hitler or Stalin will be found.
The formula is, despite some claims to the contrary from hawks, very much a redux of Libya. Indeed, those who haven’t quite come to concede what a train wreck the Libya intervention proved to be are still unapologetically citing it as an example to be applied to Syria.
While just a few days ago everyone was insisting the military option was very much “off the table,” the Pentagon is hard at work preparing for the war many see as inevitable. Turkey, the NATO member nation most eager to send ground troops, has already rejected sanctions as “pointless” while condemning Russia for backing Assad.
The extent to which Syria is “not Libya” is that Libya has already happened and does not seem so good for the hawks in retrospect. Russia and China went from being skeptical on Libya to appalled at how quickly the mission morphed to full regime change, and are determined not to see a repeat in Syria. This has made selling the war harder for hawks, but has not changed the basic strategy.
Patrick Hennigsen at Infowars.com has a nice exposé of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
you're doing better today ditz, but as long as we're merely trading in rumours why not pass along details like who (besides turkey) may be backing the free syrian army, and according to some sources has indeed been doing so since april/may http://rt.com/news/britain-qatar-troops-syria-893… http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/nato-… http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/sibel-edmo…
Presidents, King and Queens, Tyrants and prime ministers, secretaries and others from EU to US and beyond, your foreign policies has failed, it was a failure before it started, from Iraq to Afghanistan then Libya, Syria and Egypt. You need to understand that you can not throw all kind of trash into democracy hoping for something good to come out of such idea, democracy is a home grown and natural matter, there can not be a force of religion or militarization, dividing people nor any form of dictatorial attitude that you been presenting for last 60 years. By now it is clear that you democrats are against democracy itself by falsifying its principals, disrespecting its principals and above all ignoring people and their needs regarding a just social economic at home, you are hired by the bankers, working for bankers, Oil companies and other institutions which owes you, let the people of Middle East be, let them see each other face to face and solve their problems, you have done enough harm to people in Middle East for last 60 years then any time in mankind history.
"Syrian state media claiming regular terrorist attacks"
Meanwhile, on the home page of antiwar.com there is a link to a BBC story about what can only have been a well-prepared attack on Syrian security forces that inflicted hundreds of casualties. The unnamed color revolution in Syria has been sufficiently weaponized that the Western propaganda press is starting to become comfortable with reporting serious blows against Assad's regime. And not so coincidentally there is a simultaneous uptick in the warmongering against Syrian ally Iran. As they say in the spy world, there's no such thing as a coincidence.
Go ahead, you “democrats" and rest of your stupid allies, start another war in middle east for your tyrants – apartheid regime and use more and more of your terrorists groups. Bring it on, let the world go under for your stupidity and warmongering idea. Perhaps the Mayan and others are right when they say the world will go under in 2012 and it will starts with a biggest flame in Persian Gulf. What they didn't know is that the flame is the burning Oil refineries, cities and ships that are burning causing the Oil companies highjack their prices because of your stupidity. You are not there to govern the democracy, you are there to destroy the democracy and getting all kind of help from Wall Street to Oil companies and your neo Hitlers Tyrants friends in Middle East.
Mojo: I couldn't have said it better. You are absolutely right and the masses of people in the west – US/Europe – are kept in complete ignorence by the western Zionist dominated corporate media……….