14 May 2011

Tel Kalikh, al Manar, and Absurdities

Tal Kalakh is under attack by the regime. Or so it seems. This time, they seem to have done a little homework and prepped the media for their deeds.
Hezbollah’s station, al Manar, and other pro-regime voices have been broadcasting claims that the wicked 'salafiyen' have established an 'Islamic emirate' in Tel Kalikh and have started enforcing Wahhabi law … so of course, it is natural that the brave heroes of Maher’s army are rushing in to defend Syria from the menace …

They don’t mention that Tel Kalikh is a town hard on the Lebanese border that is over 2/3rds Alawi in population. So, if we were to believe them, the 10,000 or so generally less well armed and poorer Sunnis are terrorizing the peaceful Alawi population ...

Right.
That is simply absurd. If anything, it sounds much closer to an excuse for an Alawi led massacre/ethnic cleansing pf the minority; thousands of Sunnis have already fled into Lebanon …

Smell test: let’s set aside whether or not the vast majority of Sunnis desire a Taliban government and whether or not we really require the blood of an Alawi child for making our matzoh, let’s concentrate on logic.
Assume your goal is to set up a Wahhabi/Taliban style Islamic Emirate of Syria. Where would you start? In an Alawi majority town? Really???

Wouldn’t you be way more likely to try somewhere where you had potential supporters? Say a Sunni majority – or all Sunni – town, somewhere like in the Euphrates Valley?

So, simple logic says: this is propaganda or the salafi rebels are the world’s dumbest rebels who hope only to win.

My guess: a fake to justify a preemptory massacre of Sunnis. That is stupid and short-sighted, dear Alawi friends … people remember stuff like this!

So, shame on you! And shame also on al Manar and these fellow travellers in the west repeating regime propaganda …
I'm honestly more than a bit mystified as to how people like “Franklin Lamb” (who has a nice bit of fiction/regime propaganda out (either that or he is reporting from an alternate reality) about the glories of Dear Leader) justify themselves. They claim to be supporters of Palestine and Lebanon and so forth (hi IAC!) but, in my opinion, they are first and foremost anti Jewish and not pro Arab (there is a crucial difference there, between them that hate and them that love) and now carry water for the regime and its propaganda line of 'we must support Assad because he confronts Israel!' That, of course, presumes that all Syrian Sunnis are closet fans of Netanyahu and democracy would mean we’d forget the Palestinians to make sense. Really? Really? Are they really that dumb??

al Manar ... well, they do have their sectarian games inside Lebanon to play and those are more important for them so at least they are rational (though again if the issue were really confronting Israel for them, wouldn't they _want_ majority rule in Syria?)

I don’t understand that …

And in hopeful news … Al Jazeera reports that Assad has named a team to negotiate with the opposition: both VPs, Farouk al-Sharaa and Najah al-Attar, and Bouthaina Shaaban. So, let’s dialogue ladies and Farouk!

Films of Yesterday

Ibta:


Dera'a:


Idlib:


Damascus:




Homs:


Amouda:


Ma'arat an Nouman:


Qamishli:


ALL SYRIA!

Mabruk ya Amr wa Mlica!

Yesterday, we heard from my brother ... he's in the US and running family businesses there ...

And he let us know that he'd proposed and she'd said 'yes'! So, I want to let them know that I congratulate them as loud as I can! MABRUK YA AMR WA MLICA!

(Oh, and she's living in the USA, born in Belgrade, came as a child when her family left at the beginning of the Late Unpleasantness. So the clan gets that much more diverse!)

MABRUK!

Today: We're Here

Today

Well, yesterday was not as bloody as it might have been … maybe, just, maybe, the government is sincere in its talk about wanting to talk … though again that might be a ruse to get all of us whom they haven’t caught out into the open!

They are even claiming now to be pulling troops out of cities … maybe they are serious …

And if so, why?

Well, yesterday proved again that they aren’t convincing us to be silent. All across the country, Syrian people came out in large numbers and said ‘enough with this regime!’ A run down of where all the protests took place looks like a run down of cities of Syria – and there were ones in little towns and villages and out in the fields …
We’re not going back to where finding 200 people at a single protest was headline news; we’re not going back to calling protests and being too intimidated to show up

The djinn of the revolution is loose and cannot be restored. All those who have protested know that if we go back, they will eventually find us one by one and kill us all. They know it too. Are they going to kill a million Syrians?

And I think not.

They also know that if they push much more, the army will break. All the units that have been consigned to base will come out. And while Maher’s boys might have the newest guns and shiniest toys, they are not the majority in the military by far.

They have lost the population. So, now, they can take a page from their mentors in the old People’s Republics of East Europe and start negotiating their end. Would it not be more comforting for those in this regime to be known as the Jaruzelskis of Syria than as the Ceaucescus? Their choice …
We, at least some of us, are ready and willing to talk, willing to let them go free and protect them from retribution when this is done. Forgetting their crimes is a small price for us to pay if, in return, we get a Syria free of torture, free of detention, free of Article 8, one where all parties compete for elections and the press is free, one where everyone is equal before the law and the law rules the state, a democratic Syria, the Syria we dream of …
Bashar, you have our email … we’re ready … are you?