The central Syrian city of Hama has been the site of some of the largest anti-regime protests over the past several months and is now also the site of the largest massacre, as tanks attacked the city, killing at least 140 protesters and wounding scores of others.
Incredibly, the slaughter went entirely unreported by Syria’s state media, with the only report on Hama claiming six members of security forces were slain by the “armed groups” roaming the streets attacking government buildings.
The attacks come on the eve of the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month which oppsition figures have vowed to use for nightly protests against the regime. Some speculated today’s attack was an effort to discourage future rallies.
But history certainly isn’t on their side in this respect. The protest movement started five months ago now, with only a few hundred people in Daraa. Violent crackdowns brought a few hundred to a few thousand, and more crackdowns eventually swelled their numbers to upwards of a million demonstrators. Violence clearly isn’t placating the crowds, but it seems to be all the regime has to rely on.
Considering that it has been reported extensively even in the US media that the FedGov is funding the Syrian opposition, there should be better analysis on what is happening in Syria. The groups principally responsible for the demonstrations and armed attacks on Syrian security forces are affiliated with the Salafi movement. This movement is radical Islamist in its ideological objectives and is also funded by the Mossad, much as Hezbollah was funded by the Israelis in the 1970s to undermine the nationalist PLO in Lebanon. Moreover, Salafi attacks occur in other countries, such as Jordan (rt.com/news/line/2011-04-16/#id8041) which shows that the movement is not a propaganda bogey man. The Ba'athist government has solid support from the productive sectors of Syrian society, especially the farmers, who have been targeted by the anti-government terrorists. Creating civil disorder is rather clearly not in Assad's interest, but it does benefit the FedGov, which smuggles weapons into Syria via the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, and the Israelis. While the Syrian government is effectively shut out of the Western media discourse, there is an obscure group of rebels that just happens to have the support of the FedGov and access to the Western media. The more the details of Syria are known, there more it becomes obvious that there is a template-like similarity between the Syrian rebels and the Libyan rebels.
NATO has more secular dictatorships to overthrow, intervening or backing an Islamic rabble of Quran thumping extremists…again…wonder why that is? It would seem secular regimes act as a BULWARK against the almighty Islamic Caliphate that all the Pipes and Gellers across the board are so terrified of.
Move along, people, there's nothing to see here. Only when/if NATO decides to intervene will the left have something to say. Sanguine tyrants the world over can slaughter their people by the scores inasmuch as they ramp up their anti-US/anti-imperialist rhetoric.
Funny thing, you Right wing butchers don't seem to mind all the killing being done by our allies in places like Yemen, and Libya, and Israel, Colombia, Honduras and Bahrain.
What's going on in Syria is a US-backed civil war, as you know. But keep lying, as all you murderous rightwingers always do
140 dead you say….
Hey, that's OK!
Syria is anti-Israel and anti-US so how bad can they really be?
If only Israel were slaughtering ten times that many. They you Right wing creeps would really have something to root for, wouldn't you?
Excuse me? I don't root for Israel either.
The difference is, I don't pretend Israel is the worst regime on the planet and then sit back and twiddle my thumbs when an anti-Israel regime uses the same methods the Left finds so horrible in Palestine.
Odd how the only people who sem toi 'really' know are western (viz US) sources. They even seem to know before trouble happens. For instanvce a CNN source was reporting shootings in the streets in Damascus after Friday prsayers 3 weeks ago. At trhe same time a repoorter from CBC was reporting from infront of the same Mosque with a, guess what, different story. Far from rioting, the crowds were mugging for her camera, dancing and singing – live on Canadian TV. They must have been the paid stooges 'everybody' knows about. For CNN reported, from Lebanon, they were being gunned down in the street.
Well actually it was being reported on All Major Arabic News channels..so thats how they probably got it.
How dare Arabs kill Arabs?!? That's a job for israel and the United States.
Arabs are – and have always been – the best when it comes to killing Arabs.
and your point?
the u.s. can"t even get its budget right but yet we are behind the the revolt in syria…make up your minds……. are we indeed the cryptic force behind every intrigue in the world or are we the gross incompetents that can't do anything right …… i vote for the latter
Any story that is unsourced or is sourced to the rebels or to any of their supporters, as this story is, should be considered suspect. I don't know what is happening in Syria but nor does any antiwar editor or any source that has a stake in what is going on and is probably writing his account from a hotel in Beirut. The US has clearly sided with the rebels and is doing everything in its power to advance their cause, including easing the passage of their propaganda into international media.
why is 140 killed by Syrian military a massacre, but when NATO bombs a wedding party in Afghanistan, or a funeral, or just blasts people's homes to dust it is called something else, something less harsh and jarring?