Yesterday, Syria’s state media reported 120 troops killed by “armed gangs” in the area around the protest city of Jisr al-Shugur. The toll was scoffed at by many, particularly coming with the promise of a ‘decisive response’ seen as a justification for another violent crackdown. It seems the reports may have been accurate, however.
Since then, reports have emerged that portions of Syria’s military, dissatisfied with their use in attacks on civilian demonstrators, have defected, and it seems that the death toll reflects the bloody aftermath of a mutiny in the city. One opposition faction even suggested that many of the deaths were summary executions of troops who refused to take part in the crackdown.
Of course Jisr al-Shugur is virtually cut off from the rest of the world at this point, so accurate reports remain virtually impossible to confirm exactly what is going on there, but one broadcast showed a uniformed soldier, apparently having defecting, calling on other Syrian troops to do the same.
At the same time, Syrian troops are moving ever closer to the city, and with tanks on their side there is concern of yet another bloodbath. Well over 1,000 protesters have been killed in the months of demonstrations, and now it seems we can put the death toll among security forces at 150 or more.
Nothing in the Middle East is as simple as it may appear. Sadly, that's one lesson that even the Lefties can't learn. For as long as the tumult is happening in a country ruled by an enemy of their enemy, they're willing to swallow whatever the particular genocidal maniac feeds them hook, line and sinker. Qaddafi has done and continues to do the same thing in Libya and so did Ahmadinejah in Iran a couple of years ago during the Green Revolution but they just can't stand the idea of their heroes not being who they make them out to be.
Assad is no different than his father and he, too, will slaughter his people by the scores and quench the revolution just like his father did back in '82.
There are no good guys here I can TD, just dictators slaughtering their people AND so called rebels backed by the CIA, Mossad, USAID, the central banks, and other covert western spooks. That's why even though I consider myself on the "left" (whatever that even means in the 21st century) I very much back a non inttervionist foreign policy. These murky civil wars with no good guys are none of our business. Bring the troops home and slash the military budget by 90% I say.